Apollo 9: 'A Hell of a Ride'

50 years ago, we tested the capabilities of our Moon landing spacecraft in Earth’s orbit. Commander James McDivitt, Command Module Pilot David Scott and Lunar Module Pilot Rusty Schweickart performed systems checks and gathered data. The Lunar Module and the Command Module separated by nearly 100 miles and an engine burn check brought them back together. A challenging rendezvous and docking proved the abilities of the hardware. This historic mission launched on March 3, 1969 as an engineering mission and paved the way for future Apollo missions.