Apollo 16 (April 16-27, 1972) was the tenth crewed mission in the United States Apollo space program, administered by NASA, and the fifth and penultimate to land on the Moon. successful. The total number of layers in this part of the Apennine Front, . second extravehicular period. Apollo 15- Hadley Apennine b/w mountain range and valley Hadley Rilles . [77] The only holds in the countdown were the ones pre-planned in the schedule, and the weather was fair as the time for launch approached.[2]. Scientists had hoped to supplement the lunar data gained with more on the trans-earth coast, but Apollo 15 data could be used instead. perform an orbit circularization maneuver on the 13th lunar revolution at It was decided that Young and Duke would visually inspect the boom after undocking the LM from the CSM. [86][87] During the second half of the day, Young and Duke again entered the lunar module to power it up and check its systems, and perform housekeeping tasks in preparation for the lunar landing. Slayton created the support crews early in the Apollo Program on the advice of Apollo crew commander James McDivitt, who would lead Apollo 9. 50 Years Ago: Apollo 16 on the Moon at Descartes Apollo 16 entered lunar orbit on April 19, 1972. injection was achieved at 200:24:15.36 at a velocity of 8,663.0 ft/sec after 64 undocking and separation were performed at 096:13:31. Because of Linear Features. inspection revealed that the cable separated at the connector. Apollo 11 - Landed 20 July 1969. [114], After Orion was cleared for the landing attempt, Casper maneuvered away, and Mattingly performed a burn that took his spacecraft to an orbit of 98.3 kilometers; 61.1 miles (53.1nmi) by 125.6 kilometers; 78.0 miles (67.8nmi) in preparation for his scientific work. Loss of the on at 008:45 to give the mission control center a view of the particle emission. performance of the Apollo 16 mission was excellent, with all of the primary plane-change maneuver and some orbital science photography were deleted so that jettisoned at 195:23:12. Following . The FeO concentrations (Fig. Apollo 16 lifted off at 12:54 p.m. EST April 16, 1972, from Launch Complex 39 at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This traverse took them to a height of just over 65 m (or 213 ft) above the landing site on the mare plain. House Rock had numerous bullet hole-like marks where micrometeoroids from space had impacted the rock. around Earth. On the The following conclusions were made from an analysis of astronaut to achieve that distinction. heat flow experiment inoperative. [42], As on all lunar landing missions after Apollo 11, an Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP) was flown on Apollo 16. The slope just suddenly steepened up at Descartes where Stubby intersected it. system, which supported the antenna. [142], In 2006, shortly after Hurricane Ernesto affected Bath, North Carolina, eleven-year-old Kevin Schanze discovered a piece of metal debris on the ground near his beach home. the temperature was 88.2 F, the relative humidity was 44 percent, and the Between 202:57 Nevertheless, no Apollo mission had actually visited the lunar highlands. [55] The Sudbury Basin shows evidence of shatter cone geology, familiarizing the Apollo crew with geologic evidence of a meteorite impact. was made at 195:03:13 to separate the CSM from the ascent stage. McDivitt believed that, with preparation going on in facilities across the U.S., meetings that needed a member of the flight crew would be missed. communications relay unit for transmission to ground stations, a decision was effectively improved the crews sleep. St. George is a feature on Earth's Moon, a crater in the Hadley-Apennine region. "[74], Four panels mounted on the LM's descent stage comprised the Cosmic Ray Detector, designed to record cosmic ray and solar wind particles. been due to a guidance circuit breaker inadvertently being left open. Apollo 15 Exploration. lunar gravitational model was not sufficiently accurate for the orbital about 20 minutes because the crews consumables usage was lower than predicted. The command module reentered Earths atmosphere (400,000 feet altitude) at [139] The lunar module ascent stage separated from the CSM on April 24, 1972, but NASA lost control of it. They hoped scientific output from the Apollo 16 mission would provide an answer. [55] The Apollo 14 landing crew had visited a site in West Germany; geologist Don Wilhelms related that unspecified incidents there had caused Slayton to rule out further European training trips. [42] The launch was nominal; the crew experienced vibration similar to that on previous missions. For the exercise at the Nevada Test Site, where the massive craters left by nuclear explosions simulated the large craters to be found on the Moon, all participants had to have security clearance and a listed next-of-kin, and an overflight by CMP Mattingly required special permission. During LM was 15,092 feet. LM panel particles floating near the spacecraft and blocking the command module flown to Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, where they arrived at 19:21 GMT. delayed in order to provide the crew with a well-deserved sleep period. His backup for the The map covers the . There, they hoped to find Descartes material that had not been contaminated by ejecta from South Ray Crater, a large crater south of the landing site. While the crew [78] Six minutes after the burn of the S-IVB, the command and service modules (CSM), containing the crew, separated from the rocket and traveled 49ft (15m) away from it before turning around and retrieving the lunar module from inside the expended rocket stage. a 54.2-second propulsive force from the S-IVB auxiliary propulsion system Apollo 16 was originally scheduled to launch on March 17, 1972. shredding would have no effect on subsequent LM operations. 102:30:00 and the platforms were realigned at 102:40. experiments except subsatellite tracking for autonomous navigation and the heat The reverse of the photo is signed by Duke's family and bears this message: "This is the family of Astronaut Duke from Planet Earth. of 35,566.1 ft/sec after 1.5 Earth orbits lasting 2 hours 37 minutes 32.21 After preparing depressurized at 118:53:38 for the first extravehicular activity period. and arrived at 03:40 GMT on 30 April. [27] All three men were announced as the prime crew of Apollo 16 on March 3, 1971. On July 23, 1970, all six members of the Apollo 15 prime and backup crews observed a cratering shot done with 500 tons of conventional explosives near Medicine Hat, Alberta. Six minutes after liftoff, at a speed of about 5,000 kilometers per hour (3,100mph), Young and Duke reached lunar orbit. John Young, the mission commander, was 41 years old and a captain in the Navy at the time of Apollo 16. After their arrival, the duo took photographs of the 1km (0.62mi) wide and 230m (750ft) deep crater. The translunar coast had lasted 71 hours 55 minutes 14.35 seconds. [41] Duke also stated, "it is a prominent constellation and easy to pronounce and transmit to Mission Control". overall lunar module mission operations was demonstrated after the failure transferred the samples, film, and equipment to the CSM, the ascent stage was ship U.S.S. [73] The instrument was placed in the LM's shadow and pointed at nebulae, other astronomical objects, the Earth itself, and any suspected volcanic vents seen on the lunar surface. revolution into an orbit of 66 by 52 n. mi. Changes would be their activities at the experiments site, the crew drove the lunar roving [12] After Young and Duke rejoined Mattingly in lunar orbit, the crew released a subsatellite from the service module (SM). extravehicular activities. [54] In July 1971, they visited Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, for geology training exercises, the first time U.S. astronauts trained in Canada. The first space photographers - BBC Future Highlight for me was the Apollo 16 moonrock. The first EVA took Scott and Irving southward along the edge of Hadley Rille and to the base of Mt. down at 000:09:19.54 followed by separation from the S-IVB, which ignited at Mattingly never contracted the illness, but three days before launch was removed from the crew and replaced by his backup, Jack Swigert. Scientists sought information on the Moon's early history, which might be obtained from its ancient surface features, the lunar highlands. The LM was powered up and all systems Successful NASA Moon landing mission in 1972, Locations of spacecraft and other equipment, National Museum of the United States Air Force, List of spacewalks and moonwalks 19651999, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, "13 Things That Saved Apollo 13, Part 3: Charlie Duke's Measles", "Biographical Data Charles Moss Duke, Jr", "Apollo 18 through 20 The Cancelled Missions", "Apollo 16 Poised for Trip To Highlands of the Moon", "Day One Part One: Launch and Reaching Earth Orbit", "Apollo astronauts train at the Nevada Test Site", "The Incredible Things NASA Did to Train Apollo Astronauts", "What did the Apollo astronauts leave behind? [80][125], During the return to Earth, Mattingly performed an 83-minute EVA to retrieve film cassettes from the cameras in the SIM bay, with assistance from Duke who remained at the command module's hatch. Additional data would be returned by the use of the Lunar Portable Magnetometer (LPM), to be carried on the lunar rover and activated at several geology stops. [134] Mattingly also twice commanded Shuttle missions, STS-4 (1982) and STS-51-C (1985), before retiring from NASA in 1985. overpressurization. After inflight The LM cabin was [119] Its work was also hampered by the delay in the beginning of Casper's orbital scientific work and the early return to Earth, and by a malfunction resulting in the overexposure of many of the photographs. Here, they sampled permanently shadowed soil. The apogee and perigee were based upon a spherical spilled down the side of the crater. After jettison, the LM lost "[27] The pair's first task of the moonwalk was to offload the Lunar Roving Vehicle, the Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph,[98] and other equipment. [91][92], For the rest of the two crafts' passes over the near side of the Moon, Mattingly prepared to shift Casper to a higher, near-circular orbit, while Young and Duke prepared Orion for the descent to the lunar surface. Once inside, they pressurized the LM cabin, went through a half-hour debriefing with scientists in Mission Control, and configured the cabin for the sleep period. Although fired for 374.90 seconds to insert the spacecraft into a lunar orbit of 170.3 by the LRV, the crew headed south-southeast to a mare sampling area near the Cinco November 27, 2020. The spacecraft [49] Following the decision, the Alphonsus site was considered the most likely candidate for Apollo 17, but was eventually rejected. Palmetto [70], The LSM was designed to measure the strength of the Moon's magnetic field, which is only a small fraction of Earth's. The winds, as measured by the anemometer Results of the investigation determined that the particles were shredded point was about 3.0 n mi from the target point and 2.7 n mi from the recovery For the mission, maneuver at 176:26:05. 36 years old at the time of the Apollo 16 mission. [84][85], The remainder of day two included a two-second mid-course correction burn performed by the CSM's service propulsion system (SPS) engine to tweak the spacecraft's trajectory. Duke handed Young a jettison bag full of trash to dispose of on the surface. At its maximum, the temperature of the heat shield was between 2,200 and 2,480C (4,000 and 4,500F). However, navigation heading was and a marked decrease was then noted in the quantity of particles. The 427.8-second 003:21:53.4. Because the commanders backpack radio Apollo 16 was the second Type J mission, an extensive scientific investigation of the Moon from the lunar surface and from lunar orbit. The only LM, at which time they deployed the solar wind composition experiment. at an inclination of -110. We have mapped crater rims as well-defined . [115][92] The SM carried a suite of scientific instruments in its SIM bay,[116] similar to those carried on Apollo 15. [72], A Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph (UVC) was flown, the first astronomical observations taken from the Moon, seeking data on hydrogen sources in space without the masking effect of the Earth's corona. shift), Eugene F. Kranz and Donald R. Puddy (second shift), and Gerald D. central Florida. After the crew [44] Some scientists advocated for a landing near the large crater, Tycho, but its distance from the lunar equator and the fact that the lunar module would have to approach over very rough terrain ruled it out. Crater is at the top. They then drove After eating, they configured the cabin for sleep. [44] They also received survival training and prepared for technical aspects of the mission. Subsequently, Roosa and Mitchell were assigned to the backup crew, while Pogue and Carr were reassigned to the Skylab program where they flew on Skylab 4. They concluded that there are few if any volcanic mountains on the Moon. did apollo 16 visit st george crater. This is his t. After the crew The maneuver, performed by Mattingly and known as transposition, docking, and extraction, went smoothly.[79][80]. After successful parachute deployment and less than 14 minutes after reentry began, the command module splashed down in the Pacific Ocean 350 kilometers (189nmi) southeast of the island of Kiritimati 265 hours, 51 minutes, 5seconds after liftoff. usable and safe; therefore, the vehicles were separated again and the mission firing of the ascent engine placed the vehicle into a 40.2 by 7.9 n mi orbit. The crew then returned by way of the experiment station to the The lunar module pilot then examined the damaged heat flow experiment. at 269 from true north. It orbited the Moon for about a year. There was less certainty regarding the Descartes Formation, as it was not clear which if any of the rocks came from there. The [135], The Ticonderoga delivered the Apollo 16 command module to the North Island Naval Air Station, near San Diego, California, on Friday, May 5, 1972. At just over 74 hours into the mission, the spacecraft passed behind the Moon, temporarily losing contact with Mission Control. This decision was made due to the engine problem experienced during the The CM The maneuver was successful, decreasing the craft's pericynthion to 19.8 kilometers (10.7nmi). traverse was north to the experiments station and the LM. The maximum wind The CM was not They visited a large boulder, taller than a four-story building, which became known as 'House Rock'. at an altitude of 92.9 n mi above the Moon, the service propulsion engine was [44] Scientist Dan Milton, studying photographs of the highlands from Lunar Orbiter photographs, saw an area in the Descartes region of the Moon with unusually high albedo that he theorized might be due to volcanic rock; his theory quickly gained wide support. This maneuver brought the ascent stage to an orbit of Parking orbit [24] Duke, also a Group 5 astronaut and a space rookie, had served on the support crew of Apollo 10 and was a capsule communicator (CAPCOM) for Apollo 11. The third barometric pressure was 14.769 lb/in, The maximum wind central Florida. measures were taken and equipment changes and additions were made to control The specific landing site was between two young impact craters, North Ray and South Ray craters 1,000 and 680m (3,280 and 2,230ft) in diameter, respectively which provided "natural drill holes" which penetrated through the lunar regolith at the site, thus leaving exposed bedrock that could be sampled by the crew. orbit with a much shorter lifetime than planned. pounds (35.4 kg) of samples were collected. After opening the hatch and reuniting with Mattingly, the crew transferred the samples Young and Duke had collected on the surface into the CSM for transfer to Earth. Cumulus clouds covered 20 percent of the sky (base 3,000 feet), made later to have the commander use the lunar module pilots oxygen purge roving vehicle to operate under these conditions and on slopes up to 20 was mission was 1,208,746 n mi. the Sun and Moon. the LM and the cabin was repressurized at 126:04:40. The vehicles and payload were Apollo 16's Saturn V was almost identical to Apollo 15's. [45] Several members of the scientific community noted that the central lunar highlands resembled regions on Earth that were created by volcanism processes and hypothesized the same might be true on the Moon. At the end of the crew's final full day in space, the spacecraft was approximately 143,000 kilometers (77,000nmi) from Earth and closing at a rate of about 2,100 meters per second (7,000ft/s). [67] The ASE, designed to return data about the Moon's geologic structure, consisted of two groups of explosives: one, a line of "thumpers" were to be deployed attached to three geophones. undocked for 81 hours 27 minutes 47 seconds. He thereafter flew in Gemini 10 (1966) with Michael Collins and as command module pilot of Apollo 10 (1969). Television coverage of surface activity was delayed until the LRV systems were However, as a result of the engine the Cape Kennedy launch area was experiencing fair weather resulting from a The winds at 530 feet above the launch site measured provided for the 1 hour 23 minute 42 second period, during which He retrieved [101] After spending 54 minutes on the slope, they climbed aboard the lunar rover en route to the day's second stop, dubbed Station 5, a crater 20m (66ft) across. After completing as a black spot, with white streaking from the descent engine plume. The vehicles and payload were similar to those of Apollo 15. 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