Three unpiloted Apollo missions were flown in 1967 and 1968 as test flights. The first successful piloted mission, Apollo 7, was launched on October 11, 1968; three astronauts orbited Earth for eleven days. Two months later, the crew of Apollo 8 became the first humans to escape Earth’s gravitational field and orbit the Moon. Apollo 9 and Apollo 10 had flights in early 1969, and were used for final preparation runs for the landing mission in July.