The Apollo 1 Hills are three hills on

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

named to memorialize the crew of

Apollo 1 Apollo 1, initially designated AS-204, was intended to be the first crewed mission of the Apollo program, the American undertaking to land the first man on the Moon. It was planned to launch on February 21, 1967, as the first low Earth orbita ...

. The three hills were some of the first landmarks sighted following the January 7, 2004, landing of the ''Spirit'' rover on Mars.

Background

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

astronauts

Gus Grissom Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom (April 3, 1926 – January 27, 1967) was an American engineer, pilot in the United States Air Force, and member of the Mercury Seven selected by National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) as Project Mercur ...

Roger Chaffee Roger Bruce Chaffee (; February 15, 1935 – January 27, 1967) was an American naval officer, aviator and aeronautical engineer who was a NASA astronaut in the Apollo program. Chaffee was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he became an Eag ...

, and Ed White perished in a

flash fire A flash fire is a sudden, intense fire caused by ignition of a mixture of air and a dispersed flammable substance such as a solid (including dust), flammable or combustible liquid (such as an aerosol or fine mist), or a flammable gas. It is charact ...

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's Launch Complex 34, while they performed an in- capsule training for what was to be a

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...

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 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 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 Gusev is a crater on the planet Mars and is located at and is in the Aeolis quadrangle. The crater is about 166 kilometers in diameter and formed approximately three to four billion years ago. It was named after Russian astronomer Matvey Gusev ...

, part of the

Aeolis quadrangle The Aeolis quadrangle is one of a series of 30 quadrangle maps of Mars used by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Astrogeology Research Program. The Aeolis quadrangle is also referred to as MC-23 (Mars Chart-23). The Aeolis quadrangle c ...

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 Rover may refer to: People * Constance Rover (1910–2005), English historian * Jolanda de Rover (born 1963), Dutch swimmer * Rover Thomas (c. 1920–1998), Indigenous Australian artist Places * Rover, Arkansas, US * Rover, Missouri, US ...

. 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 NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's var ...

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 The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreac ...

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 A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. It often has a distinct summit. Terminology The distinction between a hill and a mountain is unclear and largely subjective, but a hill is universally considered to be not as ...

Mars Exploration Rover mission Aeolis quadrangle Gus Grissom Ed White (astronaut)

Background

Location

Panoramic view

See also

References

External links