- A FINAL VIEW OF SNOOPY'S ASCENT STAGE IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO CHARLIE BROWN, BEFORE IT DRIFTED OFF FOR ETERNITY INTO THE DARK CHASM OF SPACE -

Stunning view of the ascent stage of lunar module 'Snoopy' following its climb from near the surface of the Moon, taken by pilot John Young on board the command module 'Charlie Brown', Apollo 10, May 1969.

Vintage gelatin silver print on fibre-based paper, 20.5 x 25.5 cm (8 x 10 in), [NASA photo no AS10-34-5112], b/w variant from a colour negative, with purple NASA caption on the verso, which is otherwise blank with no watermarking. Released in May 1969.

Near Fine condition. The most minor of handling creases to edges. Please ask if you require a more detailed condition report, and view gallery images closely.

This vintage NASA photograph of the lunar module (LM) was taken by astronaut John Young in May 1969 on board the Apollo 10 command module (CM) shortly before Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan successfully docked with and re-entered the CM.

The fourth manned Apollo mission was a dress rehearsal for Apollo 11, testing all of the procedures and components of a Moon landing without actually landing on the Moon itself.

Unlike the subsequent Apollo 11 ascent stage (and all that followed it), which was left in lunar orbit to eventually crash into the lunar surface, Snoopy's ascent stage was sent on a trajectory past the Moon into a heliocentric orbit. This was not tracked after 1969, and Snoopy's location remained unknown until 2011, when a group of amateur astronomers based in the UK started a project to search for it. The Royal Astronomical Society announced a possible rediscovery of Snoopy in 2019, positing that asteroid "2018 AV2," which is roughly the size of a school bus, is likely the capsule. The Apollo 10 LM is the only once-manned spacecraft still in outer space without a crew.

⁂ After undocking from the CM, the LM crew consisting of Eugene Cernan and Thomas Stafford performed the descent orbit insertion manoeuvre by firing their descent engine for 27.4 seconds at 99:46:01.6, and tested their craft's landing radar as they approached the 15,000-meter (50,000-foot) altitude where the subsequent Apollo 11 mission would begin powered descent to actually land on the Moon.

The next action was to prepare to separate the LM ascent stage from the descent stage, to jettison the descent stage and fire the Ascent Propulsion System to return the ascent stage towards the CSM. 

As Stafford and Cernan prepared to do so, the LM began to gyrate out of control. Alarmed, Cernan exclaimed into the hot mic being broadcast live, "Son of a bitch!". Stafford discarded the descent stage about five seconds after the tumbling began and fought to regain control manually, suspecting that there might have been an "open thruster", or a thruster stuck firing, and did so in time to be able to orient the spacecraft properly to send Snoopy to rejoin Charlie Brown. Snoopy successfully rendezvoused with and re-docked with Charlie Brown at 106:22:02, just under eight hours after undocking.

The Apollo 10 mission carried two 70mm Hasselblad cameras, and this image is from film magazine 34/M. Originally taken in colour, this variant of photo no AS10-34-5092 has been grayscaled by NASA for release to the press, giving the LM an unusual ethereal quality.

The Apollo 10 CM was nicknamed 'Charlie Brown' and the LM 'Snoopy', after characters the famous cartoon strip 'Peanuts'.