| Mission name | Apollo 17 |
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| Insignia | Apollo_17-insignia.png |
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| Stats ref | |
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| Sign | Command module:AmericaLunar module:Challenger |
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| Crew size | 3 |
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| Command module | CM-114mass |
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| Service module | SM-114mass |
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| Lunar module | LM-12mass |
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| Spacecraft mass | |
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| Callsign | CSM: AmericaLM: Challenger |
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| Booster | Saturn V SA-512 |
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| Launch pad | LC 39AFlorida, USA |
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| Launch date | December 7, 197205:33:00 UTC |
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| Lunar landing | December 11, 197219:54:57 UTCTaurus-Littrow(based on the IAUMean Earth Polar Axis coordinate system) |
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| Lunar eva duration | First07:11:53Second07:36:56Third07:15:08Total22:03:57 |
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| Lunar surface time | 3 d 02 h 59 m 40s |
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| Lunar rover | LRV-3 |
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| Cmp eva duration | 01:05:44 |
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| Lunar sample mass | |
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| Time lunar orbits | 6 d 03 h 43 m 37 s |
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| Landing | December 19, 197219:24:59 UTC |
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| Mission duration | 12 d 13 h 51 m 59 s |
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| Crew photo | Apollo 17 crew.jpg |
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| Crew caption | Left to right: Schmitt, Cernan (seated), Evans |
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| Previous mission | Apollo 16 |
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| Next mission | Skylab 2 |
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Apollo 17 was the eleventh and final manned mission in the American Apollo space program. Launched at 12:33 a.m. EST on December 7, 1972, with a crew of Commander Eugene Cernan, Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans, and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt, Apollo 17 remains the most recent manned Moon landing and the most recent manned flight beyond low Earth orbit.
Apollo 17 was the sixth Apollo lunar landing, the first night launch of a U.S. human spaceflight and the final manned launch of a Saturn V booster. It was a "J-type mission", missions including three-day lunar surface stays, extended scientific capability, and the Lunar Roving Vehicle. While Evans remained in lunar orbit above in the Command/Service Module, Cernan and Schmitt spent just more than three days on the lunar surface in the Taurus-Littrow valley, performing three EVAs or moonwalks during which they collected lunar samples and deployed scientific instruments. Cernan, Evans, and Schmitt returned to Earth on December 19 after an approximately 12-day mission.
Apollo 17 also broke several records set by previous flights, including the longest manned lunar landing flight; the longest total lunar surface extravehicular activities; the largest lunar sample return, and the longest time in lunar orbit.
Crew
Former X-15 pilot Joe Engle had trained extensively with Cernan and Evans for lunar exploration as the backup LMP on Apollo 14. This came with the expectation that the entire crew would rotate up to prime crew for Apollo 17, but once it became clear that this would be the last lunar flight, the scientific community pressed NASA to select a scientist-astronaut to land on the Moon. Being directed by NASA officials to assign the scientist-astronaut, Deke Slayton, Director of Flight Crew Operations responsible for crew assignments, presented Cernan with the choice of replacing Engle with geologist Harrison Schmitt on his crew, otherwise Slayton would assign Apollo 17 to Dick Gordon's entire crew to include Schmitt (backup crew for Apollo 15) from the now-cancelled Apollo 18. Cernan opted to fly with Schmitt.
Backup crew
Original
Replacement
The Apollo 15 prime crew received the backup assignment since this was to be the last lunar mission and the backup crew would not rotate to another mission. However, when the Apollo 15 postage stamp incident became public in early 1972 the crew was reprimanded by NASA and the Air Force (they were active duty officers). Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton removed them from flight status and replaced them with Young and Duke from the Apollo 16 prime crew and Roosa from the Apollo 14 prime and Apollo 16 backup crews. Young, Roosa and Duke were announced as backups on 23 May 1972 and began their formal training on 1 July.
Support crew
Robert F. Overmyer
Robert A. Parker
C. Gordon Fullerton
Mission parameters
Mass:
Launch mass:
Total spacecraft:
* CSM mass: , of which CM was , SM
* LM mass: transposition and docking stage , separation for lunar landing , ascent stage at liftoff
Earth orbits: 2 before leaving for Moon, approximately one on return
Lunar orbits: 75
Perigee:
Apogee:
Inclination: 28.526°
Period: 87.83 min
Periselenium:
Aposelenium:
Inclination: 159.9°
Period: ~120 min
Landing Site: 20.19080° N - 30.77168° E or
20° 11' 26.88" N - 30.1° 46' 18.05" E
Docking
Undocked: December 11, 1972 - 17:20:56 UTC
Docked: December 15, 1972 - 01:10:15 UTC
EVAs
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 (Schmitt - Stand up) - 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
The splashdown point was 17° 52′ S, 166° 7′ W, SE of the Samoan Islands and from the recovery ship USS Ticonderoga. Apollo 17 landed approximately 640 meters from its target point.
Mission highlights
Liftoff
Apollo 17 liftoff was on December 7, 1972 at 05:33:00 UTC (12:33:00 a.m. EST) and was the only nighttime launch of the Saturn V launch vehicle.
Transit
'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.]]
During the transit to the Moon, the astronauts took a famous photograph of the earth known as "
The Blue Marble", which shows almost the entire continent of Africa and the continent of Antarctica. The other lunar landing missions that photographed the earth shortly after lunar orbit insertion showed the western hemisphere.
Landing
The landing site for this mission was on the southeastern rim of the
Mare Serenitatis, in the southwestern
Montes Taurus. This was a dark mantle between three high, steep
massifs, in an area known as the
Taurus-Littrow region. Pre-mission photographs showed boulders deposited along the bases of the mountains, which could provide bedrock samples. The area also contained a landslide, several impact craters, and some dark craters which could be volcanic.
EVAs
Apollo 17 was a J-class mission. The crew used a
Lunar Rover and conducted three lunar surface excursions, lasting 7.2, 7.6 and 7.3 hours. The mission returned of samples from the Moon.
Schmitt and Cernan collected a record of rocks during three Moonwalks. The crew roamed for through the Taurus-Littrow valley in their rover, discovered orange-colored soil, and left the most comprehensive set of instruments in the ALSEP on the lunar surface. Their mission was the last in the Apollo lunar landing missions. The last 4 Apollo craft were used for the three Skylab missions and the ASTP mission in 1975.
Return
Eugene Cernan is, to date, the last man to have walked on the Moon. Just before he returned to the Lunar Module for the last time, he said,
:
Although Cernan's last words before liftoff have been widely quoted as the colorful "Let's get this mother out of here", this is not supported by the transcript and audio recordings of the LM crew voices.
A plaque left on the ladder of the descent stage of Challenger reads:
:
The plaque shows two hemispheres of Earth and the near side of the Moon, and bears the signatures of Cernan, Evans, Schmitt, and President Richard M. Nixon.
Splashdown
The command module
America splashed down in the
Pacific Ocean near
American Samoa at 19:24:59
UTC on December 19, 1972. The recovery operation was performed by US Navy helicopter squadron HC-1, with Commander Edward E Dahill III as prime recovery pilot flying helicopter 001. Commander Dahill flew the astronauts to the nearby recovery ship
USS Ticonderoga. They were subsequently flown from the recovery ship to
Pago Pago International Airport in
Tafuna where they were greeted with a Samoan reception before being flown on to
Honolulu, then on to Houston.
Commander Eugene Cernan had taken a Czechoslovak flag with him to the Moon because his ancestors came from Czechoslovakia. Later he gave it to the Institute of Astronomy in Ondřejov (now Czech Republic).
Mission insignia
The circular patch is one of the most detailed of the Apollo series. The official
NASA press release said: "The insignia is dominated by the image of
Apollo, the
Greek sun god. Suspended in space behind the head of Apollo is an
American eagle of contemporary design, the red bars of the eagle's wing represent the bars in the
U.S. flag; the three white stars symbolize the three astronaut crewmen. The background is deep blue space and within it are the
Moon, the planet
Saturn and a spiral
galaxy or
nebula. The Moon is partially overlaid by the eagle's wing suggesting that this is a celestial body that man has visited and in that sense conquered. The thrust of the eagle and the gaze of Apollo to the right and toward Saturn and the galaxy is meant to imply that man's goals in space will someday include the planets and perhaps the stars. The colors of the emblem are red, white and blue, the colors of the U.S. flag; with the addition of gold, to symbolize the golden age of
space flight that will begin with this Apollo 17 lunar landing. The Apollo image used in this emblem was the profile of the
Apollo Belvedere sculpture now in the Vatican Gallery in
Rome. This emblem was designed by artist Robert T. McCall in collaboration with the astronauts." The insignia is surrounded by a light gray band with names of the crew and the words APOLLO XVII.
Spacecraft locations
The command module
America is currently on display at
Space Center Houston in
Houston, Texas.
The ascent stage of lunar module Challenger impacted the Moon December 15, 1972 at 06:50:20.8 UT (1:50 AM EST), at . The descent stage remains on the Moon at the landing site, .
Media
Depiction in fiction
Portions of the Apollo 17 mission are dramatized in the miniseries
From the Earth to the Moon episode entitled
"Le Voyage dans la Lune". In "Le Voyage dans La Lune", Co-Executive Producer Tom Hanks gave Commander Gene Cernan a moment that he desperately wished for in real life. The episode shows Cernan carving the initials of his then 9-year-old daughter, Tracey, in the lunar dust. It was something Cernan had actually intended to do during the moon walk. However, the relentless pressure of the EVA Timeline actually prevented him from doing. (Based on a Cernan interview with reporter Dan Fiorucci in a 1999 interview conducted via satellite for a story that aired on WPHL-TV, Philadelphia)
The novel Tyrannosaur Canyon by Douglas Preston opens with a depiction of the Apollo 17 Moonwalks using quotes taken from the official mission transcript.
Additionally, there have been fictional astronauts in film, literature and television who have been described as "the last man to walk on the Moon," implying they were crew members on Apollo 17. One such character was Steve Austin in the television series The Six Million Dollar Man. In the 1972 novel Cyborg, upon which the series was based, Austin remembers watching the Earth "fall away during Apollo XVII." In an episode of the series, Austin clearly states that he flew on "Apollo 17". Another example is the character of Captain Tanner played by Robert Duvall in the science fiction film Deep Impact.
The mission patch for Apollo 17 was used for the mission patch for the NASA space ship Charybdis in an episode of entitled "The Royale".
See also
Extra-vehicular activity
Google Moon
List of artificial objects on the Moon
List of spacewalks
Splashdown
Notes
References
NASA NSSDC Master Catalog
Apollo 17 Info by NASA
Apollo by the numbers: A Statistical Reference by Richard W. Orloff (NASA)
Development of Manned Space Flight, American and Soviet NASA SP-4209
The Apollo Spacecraft: A Chronology
Apollo Program Summary Report
Apollo 17 Characteristics - SP-4012 NASA historical data book
Apollo 17 entry at Apollo Lunar Surface Journal - Provides an extensive insight of the mission, along with full transcripts and detailed interviews with the crewmembers.
Lattimer, Dick (1985). All We Did was Fly to the Moon. Whispering Eagle Press. ISBN 0-9611228-0-3.
External links
NASA Apollo 17 press kit - Nov 26, 1972
Apollo 17 - entry in Encyclopedia Astronautica
Apollo 17 - Final Reflections on Apollo Video as the crew wraps up the final Apollo mission
Apollo 17 - Science Experiments
Apollo 17 - Voice Transcript Pertaining to the Geology of the Landing Site
Apollo landing Locations at Google Moon
Apollo 17 Campsite - Microsoft Photosynth
Apollo Lunar Surface VR Panoramas QTVR panoramas
Apollo simulation for Orbiter spaceflight sim
September 1973 National Geographic Magazine article
Transcript of lifting off from the Moon
Apollo 17 television transmissions ApolloTV.net Video
Category:Apollo program
Category:Lunar human spaceflights
Category:Lunar spacecraft
Category:Sample return missions
Category:1972 in spaceflight
Category:1972 in the United States
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