Apollo 7 Broadcast Live TV From Orbit

Apollo 7 launched on October 11, 1968, with Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele and Walt Cunningham aboard. It was the first crewed Apollo flight and the first three-person American mission. The crew tested the spacecraft for 163 orbits over about 10 days and 20 hours, then splashed down in the Atlantic on October 22.

Apollo 7 also made the first live TV downlink from an American spacecraft. NASA leaders called the flight “101% successful.” Its results gave NASA the confidence to send Apollo 8 around the Moon two months later, which kept President Kennedy’s goal of a landing before 1970 on schedule.