Third-party evidence for Apollo Moon landings their orbits. According to the group, in December 1972 a member "picks up Apollo 17 on its way to the Moon". Paul Maley reports several sightings of the Apollo 12 Command Module. Chabot Observatory calendar records an application of optical tracking during the final phases of Apollo 13, on April 17, 1970: Corralitos Observatory photographed Apollo 14. Paul Wilson and Richard T. Knadle, Jr. received voice transmissions from the Command/Service Module in lunar orbit on the morning of August 1, 1971. In an article for "QST" magazine they provide a detailed description of their work, with photographs. Jewett Observatory at
Apollo 9 to land on the Moon; when the crews for Apollo 8 and 9 were swapped, their backup crews were also swapped. Since the rule of thumb was for backup crews to fly as prime crew three missions later, this put Neil Armstrong's crew (Borman's backup) in position for the first landing mission Apollo 11 instead of Pete Conrad's crew, who made the second landing on Apollo 12. Apollo 9 was the first space test of the complete Apollo spacecraft, including the third critical piece of Apollo hardware besides the command and service module and the Saturn V launch vehicle—the lunar