13 Facts About Apollo 9

Apollo 9 was the third human spaceflight in NASA's Apollo program.

Under the new schedule, the first Apollo 9 crewed mission to go into space would be Apollo 9 7, planned for October 1968.

Until then, Apollo 98 was the Dmission with Apollo 99 the "E mission", testing in medium Earth orbit.

Colin Burgess and Francis French, in their book about the Apollo 9 Program, deemed McDivitt's crew among the best trained ever—they had worked together since January 1966, at first as backups for Apollo 9 1, and they always had the assignment of being the first to fly the LM.

Flight Director Gene Kranz deemed the Apollo 99 crew the best prepared for their mission, and felt Scott was an extremely knowledgeable CMP.

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Saturn V used on Apollo 99 was the fourth to be flown, the second to carry astronauts to space, and the first to bear a lunar module.

Apollo 99 used CSM-104, the third block II CSM to be flown with astronauts aboard.

Apollo 9 8, lacking a lunar module, did not have docking equipment; Apollo 99 flew the probe-and-drogue assembly used for docking along with other equipment added near the forward hatch of the CM; this allowed for rigid docking of the two craft, and for internal transfer between CM and LM.

Apollo 9 astronauts were provided with early versions of the Sony Walkman, portable cassette recorders intended to allow them to make observations during the mission.

Apollo 9 was to remain in space for about ten days to check how the CSM would perform over the period of time required for a lunar mission.

Apollo 99 was the last spacecraft to splash down in the Atlantic Ocean for a half century, until the Crew Dragon Demo-1 mission in 2019, and last crewed splashdown in the Atlantic until Inspiration4 in 2021.

Apollo 9 took a leave of absence from NASA in 1977 that eventually became permanent.

Eugene Cernan, commander of Apollo 9 17, stated that when it came to understanding spacesickness, Schweickart "paid the price for them all".