238 a
Left to right, James A. McDivitt, Commander; David R. Scott, Command Module Pilot; and Russell L. Schweickart, Lunar Module Pilot are the prime crew of the Apollo 9 (Spacecraft 104/ Lunar Module 3/ Saturn 504) space mission.

“The Apollo 9 and 10 missions were the learning phase of the program, coming as they did between the first tests of the Command Module in deep space on Apollo 8 and the lunar landing of Apollo 11. Apollo 9 and 10 were missions designed to rehearse all the steps and reproduce all the events of the Apollo 11 mission with the single exception of the lunar touchdown, stay, and liftoff. [...] We learned from those two missions how to develop our flight procedures. They are complex, at best, and for future missions we wanted to know exactly what alternatives we would have under a wide variety of circumstances to assure the safety of the astronauts and the success of the missions, in that order.”
NASA associate administrator George Muller

238 b
The Apollo 9 prime crew was the backup crew for Apollo 1, the first and ill-fated manned Apollo mission. The astronauts practice water egress procedures in a pool with full scale boilerplate model of their Command Module spacecraft at Ellington Air Force Base, near the Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston.

Having worked together since January 1966, the Apollo 9 crew remains among the best-trained in NASA’s history, and had always had the assignment of being the first to fly the Lunar Module

238 c
Apollo 9 was the first mission to include the critically important Lunar Module, a spacecraft intended for use in space only and to land on the Moon.

The first photograph is an artist-concept showing features on the exterior of the spacecraft.

The second photograph shows astronaut James Irwin and Grumman Pilot Gerald Gibbons conducting a dry run of ingress-egress procedures for manned thermal vacuum testing of Lunar Module Test Article (LTA-8) in the Space Environment Simulation Laboratory of the Manned Spacecraft Center. Grumman was the manufacturer of the Lunar Module. LTA-8 underwent tests in support of LM-3 which flew on Apollo 9 (LM Spider). The objectives of these tests included demonstrating that the Lunar Module’s environmental control system could provide a habitable environment and temperature in both the cabin and pressure suit loops.

The third photograph shows the crew of the LM (Lunar Module Pilot Russell Schweickart and Commander James McDivitt) practicing lunar orbital rendezvous and docking exercises in the LM simulator.

238 d
David Scott and Russell Schweickart (background) testing their spacesuits prior to a simulated spacecraft altitude chamber test at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) (first photograph).

James McDivitt entering the Command Module spacecraft for an altitude run in the vacuum chamber of the spaceport (second photograph).

McDivitt holding his plastic spacesuit helmet prior to training in spacecraft simulator (third photograph).

“They had started this kind of training as a crew months before the flight, gradually working toward proficiency and a degree of automatic response to the checklists, the pilots’ shorthand notes that were developed simultaneously. By the time they were ready for their actual missions, they had run through all the normal routines many times, and had thoroughly rehearsed emergency procedures for every imaginable trouble or failure”, wrote NASA associate administrator George Muller (NASA SP- 350, p. 187).

“By the time they were ready for their actual missions, they had run through all the normal routines many times, and had thoroughly rehearsed emergency procedures for every imaginable trouble or failure.”
NASA associate administrator George Muller

238 e
The B&W TV camera designed by Westinghouse manager Stanley Lebar (first photograph) was tested in the LM in Earth orbit on Apollo 9 before its use on the lunar surface on Apollo 11. The camera was capable of operating in the vacuum of space or in the special atmosphere of the LM spacecraft and transmitted some of the most famous images in history.

The second photograph shows the EMU (Extra Vehicular Mobil Unit). The spacecraft Commander and the Lunar Module Pilot will have this spacesuit in Apollo missions on the Moon. The suit was successfully tested in space by Russell Schweickart during his EVA on Apollo 9 before its use on the lunar surface on Apollo 11.