The last time NASA and the Defense Department teamed up for a lunar crew's reentry was Apollo 17 in 1972.
The three Americans and one Canadian are now headed home, with a splashdown in the Pacific set for Friday.
James Lovell, the commander of Apollo 13, has died. He was 97.
The cosmos is providing a full moon for the 55th anniversary of the first lunar landing this weekend, and plenty of other events honor Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s giant leap.
Retired Maj. Gen. William Anders, the former Apollo 8 astronaut who took the iconic “Earthrise” photo showing the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968, was killed Friday.
Fuel leaks have forced NASA to scrub the launch of its new moon rocket on a no-crew test flight.
Former astronaut Eugene "Gene" Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, has died at age 82. NASA announced that Cernan died Monday surrounded by his family.