Apollo 17
| Mission Insignia
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| Mission Statistics
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| Mission Name: | Apollo 17
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| Call Sign: | Command module:
America
Lunar module:
Challenger
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Number of
Crew: | 3
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| Launch: | December 7, 1972
05:33:00 UTC
Kennedy Space Center
LC 39A
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| Lunar Landing: | December 11, 1972
19:54:57 UTC
20° 11' 26.88" N - 30° 46' 18.05" E
Taurus-Littrow
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Lunar EVA
length: | 1st: 7 h 11 min 53 s
2nd: 7 h 36 min 56 s
3rd: 7 h 15 min 8 s
Total: 22 h 3 min 57 s
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| CMP EVA: | 1 h 5 min 44 s
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Lunar Surface
Time: | 74 h 59 min 40 s
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Lunar Sample
Mass: | 110.52 kg
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| Splashdown: | December 19, 1972
19:24:59 UTC
17° 53' S - 166° 7' W
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| Duration: | 12 d 13 h 51 min 59 s
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Number of
Lunar Orbits: | 75
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Time in
Lunar Orbit: | 147 h 43 min 37.11 s
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| Mass: | CSM 30,369 kg;
LM 16,456 kg
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| Crew Picture
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 Apollo 17 crew portrait (L-R: Schmitt, Cernan (seated) and Evans) |
| Night Launch
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Missing imageApollo_17_The_Last_Moon_Shot.jpg Apollo 17 Night Launch - The Last Moon Shot |
Apollo 17 was the eleventh manned space mission in the NASA Apollo program, and was the sixth and last mission to date to land on the Moon. It was the first night launch, and the final mission, of the Apollo program.
Crew
(1) number of spaceflights each crew member has completed, including this mission.
Backup crew
Support Crew
Mission parameters
- Mass:
- Launch mass: 2,923,387 kg
- Total spacecraft: 46,678 kg
- CSM mass: 30,320 kg, of which CM was 5960 kg, SM 24,360 kg
- LM mass: 16,448 kg, of which ascent stage was 4985 kg, descent stage 11,463 kg
- Earth orbits: 2 before leaving for Moon, about one on return
- Lunar orbits: 75
Docking
Moon walk
- Cernan and Schmitt - EVA 1
- EVA 1 Start: December 11, 1972, 23:54:49 UTC
- EVA 1 End: December 12, 07:06:42 UTC
- Duration: 7 hours, 11 minutes, 53 seconds
- Cernan and Schmitt - EVA 2
- EVA 2 Start: December 12, 1972, 23:28:06 UTC
- EVA 2 End: December 13, 07:05:02 UTC
- Duration: 7 hours, 36 minutes, 56 seconds
- Cernan and Schmitt - EVA 3
- EVA 3 Start: December 13, 1972, 22:25:48 UTC
- EVA 3 End: December 14, 05:40:56 UTC
- Duration: 7 hours, 15 minutes, 08 seconds
- Evans - Transearth EVA 4
- EVA 4 Start: December 17, 1972, 20:27:40 UTC
- EVA 4 End: December 17, 21:33:24 UTC
- Duration: 1 hour, 05 minutes, 44 seconds
See also
The splashdown point was 17 deg 53 min S, 166 deg 7 min W, 350 nautical miles SE of the Samoan Islands and 6.5 km (4 mi) from the recovery ship USS Ticonderoga.
Mission highlights
One of the last two men to set foot on the Moon was also the first scientist-astronaut, geologist Harrison Schmitt. While Evans circled in "America," Schmitt and Cernan collected a record 108.86 kilograms of rocks during three Moonwalks. The crew roamed for 33.80 kilometers through the Taurus-Littrow valley in their rover, discovered orange-colored soil, and left the most comprensive set of instruments in the ALSEP on the lunar surface. The Apollo lunar program had ended.
Introduction
Crew members were Gene Cernan, commander; Ron Evans, command module pilot; and Harrison Schmitt, lunar module pilot.
A J-class mission, featuring the Lunar Rover, they conducted three lunar surface excursions, lasting 7.2, 7.6 and 7.3 hours. The mission returned 110.5 kg of samples from the Moon.
The Command module is currently on display at NASA's Johnson Space Center, in Houston, Texas. The lunar module impacted the Moon on 15 December 1972 at 06:50:20.8 UT (1:50 AM EST) at 19.96 N, 30.50 E.
On this mission the astronauts took a famous photograph of the earth known as "The Blue Marble".
Mission notes
- Schmitt, a geologist, was the first (and to date, only) scientist on the moon.
- Like the astronauts of Apollos 10, 12, 13, and 14 before it, the Apollo 17 crew were recovered in Pacific waters near American Samoa after splashdown, and were flown from the recovery ship to the airport at Tafuna where they were greeted with an enthusiastic (and well practiced!) Samoan reception before being flown on to Honolulu, thence to Houston.
- The plaque left on the ladder of the descent stage of Challenger read: Here Men from the Planet Earth completed their first exploration of the moon. December 1972 AD. May the sprit of peace in which we came be reflected in the lives of all mankind. The plaque showed two hemispheres of Earth and the near side of the Moon, plus the signatures of Cernan, Evans, Schmitt, and President Nixon.
 Schmitt took this picture of Cernan flanked by an American flag and their lunar rover's umbrella-shaped high-gain antenna near the beginning of their third and final excursion across the lunar surface. The prominent Sculptured Hills lie in the background while Schmitt's reflection can just be made out in Cernan's helmet.  Command Module pilot Ron Evans performs a trans-earth EVA to retieve film from the Apollo 17 SIM Bay camera. (NASA) Reference
External links
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