History
The first space probe to successfully perform TLI was the Soviet Union's Luna 1 on January 2, 1959. The first human-crewed mission to successfully perform this procedure, and thus becoming the first humans to leave the Earth's influence, was Apollo 8 on December 21, 1968.
For the Apollo lunar missions, the restartable J-2 engine in the third (S-IVB) stage of the Saturn V rocket performed TLI. This particular TLI burn lasted approximately 350 seconds, providing 3.05 to 3.25 km/s (10,000 to 10,600 ft/s) of delta-v, at which point the spacecraft was traveling at approximately 10.4 km/s (34150 ft/s) relative to the Earth. The Apollo 8 TLI was spectacularly observed from the Hawaiian Islands in the pre-dawn sky south of Waikiki, photographed and reported in the papers the next day. In 1969, the Apollo 10 pre-dawn TLI was visible from Cloncurry, Australia. It was described as resembling car headlights coming over a hill in fog, with the spacecraft appearing as a bright comet with a greenish tinge.
Read more about this topic: Trans-lunar Injection
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Those who weep for the happy periods which they encounter in history acknowledge what they want; not the alleviation but the silencing of misery.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“I assure you that in our next class we will concern ourselves solely with the history of Egypt, and not with the more lurid and non-curricular subject of living mummies.”
—Griffin Jay, and Reginald LeBorg. Prof. Norman (Frank Reicher)
“The reverence for the Scriptures is an element of civilization, for thus has the history of the world been preserved, and is preserved.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)