Human spaceflight The US succeeded in developing the Saturn V rocket necessary to send the Apollo spacecraft to the Moon, and sent Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders into 10 orbits around the Moon in Apollo 8 in December 1968. In July 1969, Apollo 11 accomplished Kennedy's goal by landing Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon 21 July and returning them safely on 24 July along with Command Module pilot Michael Collins. A total of six Apollo missions landed 12 men to walk on the Moon through 1972, half of which drove electric powered vehicles on the surface. The
1977 in spaceflight 1977 in spaceflight Spaceflight in 1977 included some important events such as the roll out of the space shuttle orbiter, Voyager 1 and Voyager space probes were launched. NASA received the space shuttle orbiter later named , on 14 January. This unpowered sub-orbital space plane was launched off the top of a modified 747 and was flown unmanned until 13 August until a manned crew landed the "Enterprise" for the first time. In August and September, the two Voyager spacecraft to the outer planets were launched. Voyager 2, launched on 20 August, went on to fly past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus