the TRAGEDY of 1967

The Apollo 1 mission, originally designated as AS-204, was intended to be the first manned mission of the Apollo program, with the goal of testing the Apollo Command/Service Module (CSM) in Earth orbit. However, a tragic event occurred during a pre-launch test that led to the loss of the crew and a major setback for the Apollo program. On January 27, 1967, astronauts Virgil “Gus“ Grissom, Edward H. White II, and Roger B. Chaffee were conducting a “plugs-out“ test inside the Apollo 1 spacecraft on Launch Pad 34 at Cape Kennedy, Florida (now Cape Canaveral). The test aimed to simulate the conditions of a launch countdown without the spacecraft being fueled. The astronauts were sealed inside the command module atop the Saturn IB rocket. During the test, a fire broke out in the cabin. The cause was determined to be an electrical spark that ignited the highly flammable materials in the spacecraft’s pure oxygen atmosphere. The astronauts, wearing their full spacesuits, were una