October 11, 1967 Apollo 7

On October 11, a three man crew of Walter M. Shirra, Don F. Eisle and R. Walter Cunningham took off on Apollo 7. The launch occurred a year and a half after the tragedy of Apollo 1. During that time, the capsule was redesigned to include escape hatches, and the atmosphere was converted from one of pure oxygen to one of mixed gases. There had been a successful test of the Saturn 5 launch stage as well of the Lunar module. During the 11-day flight of Apollo 7, all of Apollo's major systems were tested extensively.