Learn about the Apollo Project

The Apollo program was designed to land humans on the Moon and bring them safely back to Earth. Six of the missions (Apollos 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17) achieved this goal and landed on the moon and rought back rock samples. Apollos 7 and 9 were Earth orbiting missions to test the Command and Lunar Modules, and did not return information about the moon. Apollos 8 and 10 tested various components while orbiting the Moon, and returned photographs of the lunar surface. Apollo 13 did not land on the Moon due to a malfunction and an explosion in its service module, but also returned photographs of the moon as well as earth. Apollo 15 was the first mission that carried the lunar rover and tested its functions well enough to give Mar Pathfinder's design crew an idea to make the rover. The six missions that landed on the Moon returned a wealth of scientific data and almost 400 kilograms of lunar samples in total. Experiments included soil mechanics, meteoroids, seismic, heat flow, lunar ranging, magnetic fields, and solar wind experiments.