AntarikshPedia
Apollo 8

1957–1969: Opening the Space Age

Apollo 8

First crewed mission to orbit the Moon.

Era 1 of 6 · full record in the catalog

Launch
21 Dec 1968
Lead / partner
United States
Target
Moon
Category
Human spaceflight
Status
Success
Vehicle
unknown
Mass
unknown
Orbit / trajectory
unknown

Why it happened

Apollo 8 flew during 1957–1969: Opening the Space Age, as part of United States's work toward moon. A sourced write-up of the context around this mission is still on the editorial queue; nothing here is invented to fill the gap.

The mission

The full narrative of this mission is pending research and writing. What is recorded so far: First crewed mission to orbit the Moon.

Results

First crewed mission to orbit the Moon.

Related missions

Apollo 8 Zond 5 — same_target Zond 5 Lunar Orbiter 5 — same_target Lunar Orbiter… Apollo 11 — same_target Apollo 11 Luna 10 — same_target Luna 10

Zond 5

Success

Soviet Union · 1968

Sources & image credits

  • Image credit: NASA (AS8-14-2383) · license: public-domain (source, checked 2026-08-22)
  • Mission record: AntarikshPedia canonical dataset (data-sources/missions_timeline.md)
  • Specifications reference: NASA NSSDCA Master Catalog