The Apollo 1 Hills are three hills on Mars named to memorialize the crew of Apollo 1. The three hills were some of the first landmarks sighted following the January 7, 2004, landing of the ''Spirit'' rover on Mars.

Background

NASA astronauts Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee, and Ed White perished in a flash fire which engulfed their command module on January 27, 1967, while training for the first of the crewed Apollo missions, initially designated as Apollo Saturn-204 (AS-204). Their capsule stood atop the Saturn-1B rocket which was at the time docked to the launchpad gantry at

Cape Canaveral , image = cape canaveral.jpg , image_size = 300 , caption = View of Cape Canaveral from space in 1991 , map = Florida#USA , map_width = 300 , type =Cape , map_caption = Location in Florida , location ...

Launch Complex 34 Launch Complex 34 (LC-34) is a deactivated launch site on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. LC-34 and its companion LC-37 to the north were used by NASA from 1961 through 1968 to launch Saturn I and IB rockets as part of the Apollo ...

, while they performed an in- capsule training for what was to be a low Earth orbit shake-out mission for the United States' Apollo Space Program.''Apollo 1 50th Anniversary Memorials''
webpage; Collect Space online; accessed January 2020 The craft was set to launch three weeks later, on February 21, 1967. Following the fire, the mission was renamed Apollo 1 to honor the crew's work.''Apollo 1 – (AS-204)''
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum online; accessed January 2020 Apollo 1 Prime Crew - GPN-2000-001159

Mission Command Pilot Grissom had flown in both

Mercury Mercury commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * Merc ...

and Gemini programs. Chaffee, at 31, was the youngest member of the astronaut corp ever chosen and was prepping for his first flight. White had been the first American to perform a

spacewalk Extravehicular activity (EVA) is any activity done by an astronaut in outer space outside a spacecraft. In the absence of a breathable atmosphere of Earth, Earthlike atmosphere, the astronaut is completely reliant on a space suit for environmen ...

during the Gemini program.''Apollo 1 Testing Ends in Tragedy''
webpage; January 27, 2019; MacNeil, Jessica; EDN online; accessed January 2020

Location

The three vastly separated hills are located in the Gusev crater, part of the Aeolis quadrangle on Mars. They were photographed from ''Spirit''s landing site, designated as the ''Columbia'' Memorial Station, shortly after the descent and soft landing on the Martian surface of the rover. The ''Columbia'' station and the nearby Columbia Hills are themselves named in honor of the seven crew members of the fatal ''Columbia'' spacecraft breakup."Martian Hills Named after Apollo Crew"
webpage; NBC News online; accessed January 2020 The hills are named in memory of the three Apollo 1 astronauts. Grissom Hill is located 7.5 km (4.7 mi) southwest of the ''Columbia'' Memorial Station (at Martian co-ordinates ); while 11.2 km (7.0 mi) to the northwest lies White Hill; and Chaffee Hill is located 14.3 km (8.9 mi) south-southwest of the station. As of January 2020, however, the International Astronomical Union has not officially designated the hills with the names of the astronauts.

Panoramic view

References

External links

* http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/55172main_apollo_hills.jpg
Official Mars Rovers site
{{Geography of Mars Hills on Mars Hills Mars Exploration Rover mission Aeolis quadrangle Gus Grissom Ed White (astronaut)

Background

Location

Panoramic view

See also

References

External links