Apollo Lunar Module

From today's featured articleFrom today's featured article
Photograph of the convention
Photograph of the convention
The 1880 Republican National Convention (June 2 to 8, 1880, Chicago) resulted in the nominations of James A. Garfield of Ohio and Chester A. Arthur of New York as the Republican Party candidates for U.S. president and vice president. Leaders in the early balloting at the convention, which deadlocked for several days, were former president Ulysses S. Grant, Senator James G. Blaine of Maine, and John Sherman, the treasury secretary. After the 35th ballot, Blaine and Sherman switched their support to a new "dark horse", Garfield, a congressman from Ohio, who had nominated Sherman. On the 36th ballot, Garfield won the nomination. After Arthur won the vice presidential nomination on the first ballot, the longest-ever Republican National Convention adjourned. The Garfield–Arthur Republican ticket narrowly defeated Democrats Winfield Scott Hancock and William H. English in the 1880 presidential election. (This article is part of a featured topic: 1880 United States presidential election.)
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Photograph of the convention
Photograph of the convention
The 1880 Republican National Convention (June 2 to 8, 1880, Chicago) resulted in the nominations of James A. Garfield of Ohio and Chester A. Arthur of New York as the Republican Party candidates for U.S. president and vice president. Leaders in the early balloting at the convention, which deadlocked for several days, were former president Ulysses S. Grant, Senator James G. Blaine of Maine, and John Sherman, the treasury secretary. After the 35th ballot, Blaine and Sherman switched their support to a new "dark horse", Garfield, a congressman from Ohio, who had nominated Sherman. On the 36th ballot, Garfield won the nomination. After Arthur won the vice presidential nomination on the first ballot, the longest-ever Republican National Convention adjourned. The Garfield–Arthur Republican ticket narrowly defeated Democrats Winfield Scott Hancock and William H. English in the 1880 presidential election. (This article is part of a featured topic: 1880 United States presidential election.)
Recently featured: David Evans (RAAF officer)Zeng LaishunNamco

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The Apollo Lunar Module (LM /ˈlɛm/), originally designated the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), was the <a href="/facts/Lunar_lander/M6UsNnXY">lunar lander</a> <a href="/facts/Spacecraft/YQqQaUw0">spacecraft</a> that was flown between <a href="/facts/Lunar_orbit/486BxvD6">lunar orbit</a> and the Moon's surface during the United States' <a href="/facts/Apollo_program/IC1Ek1Ao">Apollo program</a>. It was the first crewed spacecraft to operate exclusively in the airless vacuum of space, and remains the only crewed vehicle to land anywhere beyond Earth.
Structurally and aerodynamically incapable of flight through Earth's atmosphere, the <a href="/facts/Multistage_rocket/WNrmgztj">two-stage</a> Lunar Module was ferried to lunar orbit attached to the <a href="/facts/Apollo_command_and_service_module/rfoTgzFx">Apollo command and service module</a> (CSM), about twice its mass. Its crew of two flew the Lunar Module from lunar orbit to the Moon's surface. During takeoff, the spent descent stage was used as a launch pad for the ascent stage which then <a href="/facts/Lunar_orbit_rendezvous/tQNlpJS1">flew back to the command module</a>, after which it was also discarded.
Overseen by <a href="/facts/Grumman/0qsyLV6J">Grumman</a>, the LM's development was plagued with problems that delayed its first uncrewed flight by about ten months and its first crewed flight by about three months. Regardless, the LM became the most reliable component of the Apollo–Saturn <a href="/facts/Space_vehicle/aVPHlm59">space vehicle</a>. The total cost of the LM for development and the units produced was $21.65 billion in 2016 dollars, adjusting from a nominal total of $2.29 billion using the NASA New Start Inflation Indices.
Ten Lunar Modules were launched into space. Of these, six were landed by humans on the Moon from 1969 to 1972. The first two flown were tests in <a href="/facts/Low_Earth_orbit/rq1TwayJ">low Earth orbit</a>: <a href="/facts/Apollo_5/mXnS5NIQ">Apollo 5</a>, without a crew; and <a href="/facts/Apollo_9/L2UtJfyL">Apollo 9</a> with a crew. A third test flight in low lunar orbit was <a href="/facts/Apollo_10/SYbSPPHM">Apollo 10</a>, a dress rehearsal for the first landing, conducted on <a href="/facts/Apollo_11/BdUKVnQP">Apollo 11</a>. The <a href="/facts/Apollo_13/YfSNWC07">Apollo 13</a> Lunar Module functioned as a lifeboat to provide life support and propulsion to keep the crew alive for the trip home, when their CSM was disabled by an oxygen tank explosion en route to the Moon.
The six landed descent stages remain at their landing sites; their corresponding ascent stages crashed into the Moon following use. One ascent stage (Apollo 10's Snoopy) was discarded in a <a href="/facts/Heliocentric_orbit/b4zMv2jE">heliocentric orbit</a> after its descent stage was discarded in lunar orbit. The other three LMs were destroyed during controlled re-entry in the Earth's atmosphere: the four stages of <a href="/facts/Apollo_5/mXnS5NIQ">Apollo 5</a> and <a href="/facts/Apollo_9/L2UtJfyL">Apollo 9</a> each re-entered separately, while Apollo 13's Aquarius re-entered as a unit.

Apollo Lunar Module open-in-new

Apollo Lunar Module