Apollo 1

Week of Remembrance.

Today marks the beginning of a week filled with the sad anniversaries of NASA's tragedies.  

At 1 pm EST on January 27th, 1967 Command Pilot, Lt. Colonel Virgil  "Gus" Grissom,   Senior Pilot, Lt. Colonel Edward  White, II and Pilot Lt Commander Roger  Chaffee climbed into the command module of AS-204.

Perched atop a Saturn IB launch vehicle at the Cape Canaveral  Launch Complex 34 the three men were testing the ability of the command module to operate properly on its internal power.   The simulated countdown was suspended and resumed several times as the testing continued.   At 6:30 pm the countdown was on hold at T-10 minutes.  Test instruments indicated a change in a normally stable electrical circuit at 6:30:54 pm.  Ten seconds later Grissom reported a fire in the cabin.  All transmissions from the crew ended abruptly at 18:31:21.  

Left to Right: White, Grissom, Chaffee

 
The wives of the Astronauts asked for the mission to be retroactively renamed as Apollo 1.