Apollo 7

Astronauts Walter Schirra Jr, Donn Eisele, and Walter Cunningham launched the Apollo 7 on October 11, 1968, and remained in space for 11 days practicing maneuvers for a lunar mission. A sigh of relief came to men and women who worked at NASA when Apollo seven was successfully recovered October 22 in the Atlantic Ocean. This mission was a huge milestone for the Apollo Missions in the fact that it put men back into the Command Module during the mission and NASA had practically mastered the manipulation of the Command Module, Lunar Module, and the Saturn V rocket. NASA became very confident that they could get to the moon and back after the success of this mission.

Facts and Statistics from the NSSDC (National Space Science Data Center) Master Catalog:

The spacecraft mass of 14,781 kg is the mass of the CSM including propellants and expendables. Apollo 7 splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean on 22 October 1968 at 11:11:48 UT (7:11:48 a.m. EDT) after a mission elapsed time of 260 hrs, 9 mins, 3 secs. The splashdown point was 27 deg 32 min N, 64 deg 04 min W, 200 nautical miles SSW of Bermuda and 13 km (8 mi) north of the recovery ship USS Essex.