The Apollo 7 space vehicle, crewed by Donn Eisele and Walt Cunningham and commanded by Wally Schirra, was launched from Cape Kennedy, Fla., on Oct. 11, 1968. The spacecraft was placed into an orbit of 227.8 x 283.4 kilometers (123 x 153 nautical miles.)

The primary objectives for the Apollo 7 engineering test flight, were simple: "Demonstrate Command/Service Module (CSM) and crew performance; demonstrate crew/space vehicle and mission support facilities performance during a manned Command/Service Module mission; demonstrate Command/Service Module rendezvous capability." For nearly 11 days, the Command Module was run through numerous tests. Almost without exception, spacecraft systems operated as intended. The Command Module's service propulsion system, which would fire the Command Module into and out of Moon orbit, worked perfectly during eight burns lasting from half a second to 67.6 seconds.

The mission lasted 163 orbits with the crew being the first to beam live telecasts from orbit, and giving millions of people worldwide their first view of space.

The vehicle experienced a normal deorbit, entry and landing sequence, coming down in the Atlantic Ocean southeast of Bermuda. Apollo's flotation bags had their first tryout when the spacecraft splashed down in the Atlantic southeast of Bermuda, less than 2 kilometers from the planned impact point.