About 30 hours after launch, Apollo 7 rendezvoused with its spent Saturn IB second stage, coming within 70 feet of the tumbling rocket without using radar data.
Notes on verification
Confirmed by NASA's official Apollo 7 mission summary and corroborated by AmericaSpace regarding lack of rendezvous radar; timing and distance match closely across independent sources. [tier=silver indep_score=0.925 clusters=2 claim_tier=notable]
Sources
- The Flight (and Fights) of Apollo 7 - Smithsonian Magazine (seed:science_and_space)
- https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_07a_Summary.htm (corroboration)
- https://www.americaspace.com/2013/10/13/yabadabadoo-45-years-since-apollo-7-charted-a-course-for-the-moon-part-1-2/ (corroboration)