Apollo Lunar Module The first manned lunar landing occurred on July 20, 1969 with the Apollo 11 LM "Eagle". Four days later, the Apollo 11 crew in the Command Module "Columbia" splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, completing President John F. Kennedy's goal "before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth." This was followed by precision landings on Apollo 12 "(Intrepid)" and Apollo 14 "(Antares)".In April 1970, the Apollo 13 lunar module "Aquarius" played an unexpected role in saving the lives of the three astronauts after an oxygen tank in the service
Apollo Docking Mechanism Apollo Docking Mechanism The docking system of the Apollo modules was a "probe and drogue" system. The system allowed the Apollo Command/Service Module to dock with the Apollo Lunar Module, and later allowed the ASTP CSM to dock with the Docking Module (an adapter which allowed to dock with the Soyuz 19 spacecraft) and Skylab 2, Skylab 3 and Skylab 4 CSMs to dock with Skylab. There were 12 hard latches. The Apollo system differed from the Gemini Docking Mechanism in that after locking, the probe and cone mechanism could be manually removed to allow access between the two docked