Apollo 17

Mission Insignia
Mission Statistics
Mission Name:	Apollo 17
Call Sign:	Command module: America Lunar module: Challenger
Number of Crew:	3
Launch:	December 7, 1972 05:33:00 UTC Kennedy Space Center LC 39A
Lunar Landing:	December 11, 1972 19:54:57 UTC 20° 11' 26.88" N - 30° 46' 18.05" E Taurus-Littrow
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
CMP EVA:	1 h 5 min 44 s
Lunar Surface Time:	74 h 59 min 40 s
Lunar Sample Mass:	110.52 kg
Landing:	December 19, 1972 19:24:59 UTC 17° 53' S - 166° 7' W
Duration:	12 d 13 h 51 min 59 s
Number of Lunar Orbits:	75
Time in Lunar Orbit:	147 h 43 min 37.11 s
Mass:	CSM 30,369 kg; LM 16,456 kg
Crew Picture
Apollo 17 crew portrait (L-R: Schmitt, Cernan (seated) and Evans)
Night Launch

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.

Contents

1 Crew 1.1 Backup crew 1.2 Support Crew 2 Mission parameters 2.1 Docking 2.2 Moon walk 2.3 See also 3 Mission highlights 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Mission notes 3.3 Reference 4 External links

Crew

• Gene Cernan (3), commander
• Ron Evans (1), command module pilot
• Harrison "Jack" Schmitt (1), lunar module pilot

(1) number of spaceflights each crew member has completed, including this mission.

Backup crew

• John Young, commander
• Stuart Roosa, command module pilot
• Charles Duke, lunar module pilot

Support Crew

• Robert Overmyer
• Bob Parker
• Gordon Fullerton

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

• Perigee: 168.9 km
• Apogee: 171.3 km
• Inclination: 28.526°
• Period: 87.83 min

• Perilune: 97.4 km
• Apolune: 314.8 km
• Inclination: 159.9°
• Period: min
• Landing Site: 20.19080° N - 30.77168° E http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/lunar_sites.html or
  20° 11' 26.88" N - 30° 46' 18.05" E

Docking

• Undocked: December 11, 1972 - 17:20:56 UTC
• Docked: December 15, 1972 - 01:10:15 UTC

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

• Extra-vehicular activity
• List of spacewalks
• Splashdown

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.

Preceded by : Apollo 16

Project Apollo

Followed by : Skylab 2 Skylab 1

Reference

• NASA NSSDC Master Catalog http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/sc-query.html
• Apollo 17 Info by NASA http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo17info.html
• APOLLO BY THE NUMBERS: A Statistical Reference by Richard W. Orloff (NASA) http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_00a_Cover.htm
• Development of Manned Space Flight, American and Soviet NASA SP-4209 http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4209/appb.htm
• The Apollo Spacecraft: A Chronology http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4009/cover.htm
• Apollo Program Summary Report http://history.nasa.gov/apsr/apsr.htm
• Apollo 17 Characteristics - SP-4012 NASA HISTORICAL DATA BOOK http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4012/vol3/table2.45.htm
• Apollo 17 entry at Apollo Lunar Surface Jurnal http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/a17.html - Provides an extensive insight of the mission, along with full transcripts and detailed interviews with the crewmembers.

External links

• Apollo 17 entry in Encyclopedia Astronautica http://www.astronautix.com/flights/apollo17.htm
• September 1973 National Geographic Magazine article http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0407/online_extra.html?c=Newsletters&n=2
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