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
Apollo 13 Mission Operations Team Apollo 13 Mission Operations Team The Apollo 13 Mission Operations Team worked at the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas during the mission, and was responsible for all aspects of the Apollo 13 flight after it cleared the launch tower after liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida.. On April 18, 1970, the team was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard M. Nixon. They were awarded these because of their courage during their space mission to the moon. The award reads as follows: "We often speak of scientific "miracles"—forgetting that these are not miraculous happenings at