List of Apollo missions

The Apollo program was a United States human spaceflight program carried out from 1961 to 1972 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which landed the first astronauts on the Moon. The program used the Saturn IB and Saturn V launch vehicles to lift the Command/Service Module and Lunar Module spacecraft into space, and the Little Joe II rocket to test a launch escape system which was expected to carry the astronauts to safety in the event of a Saturn failure. Uncrewed test flights beginning in 1966 demonstrated the safety of the launch vehicles and spacecraft to carry astronauts, and four crewed flights beginning in October 1968 demonstrated the ability of the spacecraft to carry out a lunar landing mission.
Apollo achieved the first crewed lunar landing on the Apollo 11 mission, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their LM Eagle in the Sea of Tranquility and walked on the lunar surface, while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the CSM Columbia, and all three landed safely on Earth on July 24, 1969. Five subsequent missions landed astronauts on various lunar sites, ending in December 1972 with 12 men having walked on the Moon and of lunar rocks and soil samples returned to Earth, greatly contributing to the understanding of the Moon's composition and geological history.
Two Apollo missions were failures: a 1967 cabin fire killed the entire Apollo 1 crew during a ground test in preparation for what was to be the first crewed flight; and the third landing attempt on Apollo 13 was aborted by an oxygen tank explosion en route to the Moon, which disabled the CSM Odyssey's electrical power and life support systems, and made the propulsion system unsafe to use. The crew circled the Moon and were returned safely to Earth using the LM Aquarius as a "lifeboat" for these functions.

Uncrewed test flights

From 1961 through 1967, Saturn launch vehicles and Apollo spacecraft components were tested in uncrewed flights.

Saturn I

The Saturn I launch vehicle was originally planned to carry crewed Command Module flights into low Earth orbit, but its payload capacity limit could not lift even a partially fueled Service Module, which would have required building a lightweight retrorocket module for deorbit. These plans were eventually scrapped in favor of using the uprated Saturn IB to launch the Command Module with a half-fueled Service Module for crewed Earth orbit tests. This limited Saturn I flights to Saturn launch vehicle development, CSM boilerplate testing, and three Pegasus micrometeoroid satellite missions in support of Apollo.

Mission		Launch	Pad	Remarks	Refs
SA-1	SA-1	October 27, 1961, 15:06	LC-34	Test of Saturn I first stage S-I; dummy upper stages carried water
SA-2	SA-2	April 25, 1962, 14:00	LC-34	Dummy upper stages released of water into upper atmosphere, to investigate effects on radio transmission and changes in local weather conditions
SA-3	SA-3	November 16, 1962, 17:45	LC-34	Repeat of SA-2 mission
SA-4	SA-4	March 28, 1963, 20:11	LC-34	Test premature shutdown of a single S-I engine
SA-5	SA-5	January 29, 1964, 16:25	LC-37B	First flight of live second stage. First orbital flight.
AS-101	SA-6	May 28, 1964, 17:07	LC-37B	Tested first boilerplate Apollo command and service module for structural integrity
AS-102	SA-7	September 18, 1964, 17:22	LC-37B	Carried first programmable-in-flight computer on the Saturn I vehicle; last launch vehicle development flight
AS-103	SA-9	February 16, 1965, 14:37	LC-37B	Carried Pegasus A satellite and boilerplate CSM
AS-104	SA-8	May 25, 1965, 07:35	LC-37B	Carried Pegasus B satellite and boilerplate CSM
AS-105	SA-10	July 30, 1965, 13:00	LC-37B	Carried Pegasus C satellite and boilerplate CSM

There was some incongruity in the numbering and naming of the first three uncrewed Apollo-Saturn or Apollo flights. This is due to AS-204 being renamed to Apollo 1 posthumously. This crewed flight was to have followed the first three uncrewed flights. After the fire which killed the AS-204 crew on the pad during a test and training exercise, uncrewed Apollo flights resumed to test the Saturn V launch vehicle and the Lunar Module; these were designated Apollo 4, 5 and 6. The first crewed Apollo mission was thus Apollo 7. Simple "Apollo" numbers were never assigned to the first three uncrewed flights, although renaming AS-201, AS-202, and AS-203 as Apollo 1-A, Apollo 2 and Apollo 3, had been briefly considered.

Saturn IB

The Saturn I was converted to the Uprated Saturn I, eventually designated Saturn IB, by replacing the S-IV second stage with the S-IVB, which would also be used as the third stage of the Saturn V with the addition of on-orbit restart capability. This increased the payload capacity to, enough to orbit a Command Module with a half-fueled Service Module, and more than enough to orbit a fully fueled Lunar Module.
Two suborbital tests of the Apollo Block I Command and Service Module, one S-IVB development test, and one Lunar Module test were conducted. Success of the LM test led to cancellation of a planned second uncrewed flight.

Mission	Serial N^o	Launch	Remarks	Refs
AS-201	Saturn IB SA-201	February 26, 1966, 16:12 GMT Launch Complex 34	First test of Saturn IB and Block I Apollo CSM. Suborbital flight landed the CM in the Atlantic Ocean, demonstrating the heat shield. Propellant pressure loss caused premature SM engine shutdown.
AS-203	Saturn IB SA-203	July 5, 1966, 14:53 GMT Launch Complex 37B	No Apollo spacecraft; instrumentation and video observed on-orbit behavior of S-IVB liquid hydrogen fuel in support of restart capability design for Saturn V. Deemed a success, despite inadvertent destruction of S-IVB during final overpressure tank rupture test.
AS-202	Saturn IB SA-202	August 25, 1966, 17:15 GMT Launch Complex 34	Suborbital flight to Pacific Ocean splashdown. CM heat shield tested to higher speed; successful SM firings.
Apollo 5	Saturn IB SA-204	January 22, 1968, 22:48 GMT Launch Complex 37B	First flight of LM successfully fired descent engine and ascent engines; demonstrated "fire-in-the-hole" landing abort test.

Launch escape system tests

From August 1963 to January 1966, a number of tests were conducted at the White Sands Missile Range for development of the launch escape system. These included simulated "pad aborts", which might occur while the Apollo-Saturn space vehicle was still on the launch pad, and flights on the Little Joe II rocket to simulate Mode I aborts which might occur while the vehicle was in the air.

Mission	Launch vehicle	Launch	Remarks	Refs
QTV	Little Joe II	August 28, 1963, 13:05 GMT Launch Complex 36	Little Joe II qualification test
Pad Abort Test 1	-	November 7, 1963, 16:00 GMT Launch Complex 36	Launch escape system abort test from launch pad
A-001	Little Joe II	May 13, 1964, 13:00 GMT Launch Complex 36	LES transonic test, success except for parachute failure
A-002	Little Joe II	December 8, 1964, 15:00 GMT Launch Complex 36	LES maximum altitude, Max-Q abort test
A-003	Little Joe II	May 19, 1965, 13:01 GMT Launch Complex 36	LES canard maximum altitude abort test
Pad Abort Test 2	-	June 29, 1965, 13:00 GMT Launch Complex 36	LES pad abort test of near Block-I CM
A-004	Little Joe II	January 20, 1966, 15:17 GMT Launch Complex 36	LES test of maximum weight, tumbling Block-I CM

Saturn V

Prior to George Mueller's tenure as NASA's Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight starting in 1963, it was assumed that 20 Saturn Vs, with at least 10 unpiloted test flights, would be required to achieve a crewed Moon landing, using the conservative one-stage-at-a-time testing philosophy used for the Saturn I. But Mueller introduced the "all-up" testing philosophy of using three live stages plus the Apollo spacecraft on every test flight. This achieved development of the Saturn V with far fewer uncrewed tests, enabling a Moon landing by the 1969 goal. The size of the Saturn V production lot was reduced from 20 to 15 units.
Three uncrewed test flights were planned to human-rate the super heavy-lift Saturn V which would take crewed Apollo flights to the Moon. Success of the first flight and qualified success of the second led to the decision to cancel the third uncrewed test.

Mission	Serial N^o	Launch	Remarks	Refs
Apollo 4	Saturn V SA-501	November 9, 1967, 12:00 GMT Launch Complex 39A	First flight of Saturn V rocket; successfully demonstrated S-IVB third stage restart and tested CM heat shield at lunar re-entry speeds.
Apollo 6	Saturn V SA-502	April 4, 1968, 16:12 GMT Launch Complex 39A	Second flight of Saturn V; severe "pogo" vibrations caused two second-stage engines to shut down prematurely, and third stage restart to fail. SM engine used to achieve high-speed re-entry, though less than Apollo 4. NASA identified vibration fixes and declared Saturn V man-rated.