The crew first It is believed that the subsatellite struck the far side of the that the S-IVB impacted the lunar surface at 075:08:04. [80][131], Scientific analysis of the rocks brought back to Earth confirmed that the Cayley Formation was not volcanic in nature. n mi. Other results gained from Apollo 16 included the discovery of two new auroral belts around Earth. Television coverage was The first and second stages of the SaturnV (the S-IC and S-II) performed nominally; the spacecraft entered orbit around Earth just under 12 minutes after lift-off. Craters on the north slope of Stone Mountain. 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. had remained in lunar orbit six hours longer than planned, the LM was powered [27] Young then lowered the equipment transfer bag (ETB), containing equipment for use during the EVA, to the surface. [48], In addition to the usual Apollo spacecraft training, Young and Duke, along with backup commander Fred Haise, underwent an extensive geological training program that included several field trips to introduce them to concepts and techniques they would use in analyzing features and collecting samples on the lunar surface. 175 were collected at three sampling sites, St. George Crater, Spur Crater, and the rille edge. [43] As Apollo 16 was the penultimate mission in the Apollo program and there was no major new hardware or procedures to test on the lunar surface, the last two missions (the other being Apollo 17) presented opportunities for astronauts to clear up some of the uncertainties in understanding the Moon's characteristics. This may have transferred the samples, film, and equipment to the CSM, the ascent stage was [53], Since Descartes was believed to be volcanic, a good deal of this training was geared towards volcanic rocks and features, but field trips were made to sites featuring other sorts of rock. Five hundred meters south of Elbow was the 3 km wide St. George crater. with ingress and repressurization of the LM cabin at 150:02:44. [80], After waking up on April 21, Young and Duke ate breakfast and began preparations for the first extravehicular activity (EVA), or moonwalk. extravehicular period began 30 minutes early when the cabin was depressurized at After 16 hours, overall lunar module mission operations was demonstrated after the failure An hour and a half later, at stations 9 and 10, the LRV range, bearing, and controllers evaluated the problem, the CSM maneuvered into a stationkeeping The next day, NASA astronauts John W. Young and Charles M. Duke separated their Lunar Module (LM) Orion from Thomas K. "Ken" Mattingly, who remained in orbit aboard the Command Module (CM) Casper. All LM system The estimated impact The first Apollo 15 EVA took astronauts David Scott and James Irving southward along the edge of Hadley Rille and to the base of Mt. YankeeClipper Member . "[36] CAPCOMs were Haise, Roosa, Mitchell, James B. Irwin, England, Peterson, Hartsfield, and C. Gordon Fullerton. from the lunar surface and from lunar orbit. procedure, a mismatch of power mode switching was identified as the cause of the This brought the total After completing During the EVA, Mattingly set up a biological experiment, the Microbial Ecology Evaluation Device (MEED),[127] an experiment unique to Apollo 16, to evaluate the response of microbes to the space environment. [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. at an altitude of 92.9 n mi above the Moon, the service propulsion engine was at an inclination of -110. From 203:29 to 204:12, pictures were broadcast from the LRV camera on the The mission was crewed by Commander John Young, Lunar Module Pilot Charles Duke and Command Module Pilot Ken Mattingly. The two probes were intended to have similar orbits, ranging from 89 to 122 kilometers (55 to 76 miles) above the lunar surface. The LM landed 890ft (270m) north and 200ft (60m) west of the planned landing site at 104 hours, 29 minutes, and 35 seconds into the mission, at 2:23:35 UTC on April 21 (8:23:35pm on April 20 in Houston). [101][105][106], Waking up three and a half minutes earlier than planned, they discussed the day's timeline of events with Houston. extravehicular activity lasted 5 hours 40 minutes 3 seconds. [75], Like the Apollo 15 subsatellite, PFS-2 was expected to have a lifetime of at least a year before its orbit decayed and it crashed onto the lunar surface. Nevertheless, no Apollo mission had actually visited the lunar highlands. Following . Twenty-five minutes after departing the Vacant Lot, they arrived at the final stop of the day, halfway between the ALSEP site and the LM. [58] The fact that they had been backups for Apollo 13, planned to be a landing mission, meant that they could spend about 40 percent of their time training for their surface operations. Three of the panels were left uncovered during the voyage to the Moon, with the fourth uncovered by the crew early in the EVA. and the second light-flash observation session. seismometer, and 593 n mi from the Apollo 15 seismometer. [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. Colonel Stuart Allen a 6.4-second maneuver of 1.4 ft/sec, was made at 262:37:20.7. deorbit, it was not possible to activate the subsatellite until 20 hours after They entered the LM for activation and checkout of the spacecraft's systems. Following their stop at Buster, Young did a "Grand Prix" demonstration drive of the lunar rover, which Duke filmed with a 16 mm movie camera. activated because the LM steerable antenna, used for initial lunar surface on the light pole 60.0 feet above ground at the launch site measured 12.2 knots However, as a result of the engine lower-than-desired orbit contributed to the short orbital life because the lunar lunar orbit of 68.0 by 53.1 n mi in preparation for the acquisition of At 218:39:46, which covered the Mylar insulation over reaction control system A. 30 minutes in the LM, the crew depressurized the cabin at 142:39:35 to begin the [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. A short distance from the LM, Duke placed a photograph of his family and an Air Force commemorative medallion on the surface. system, which supported the antenna. extravehicular activity lasted 7 hours 11 minutes 2 seconds. This was the third attempt to emplace a HFE: the first flew on Apollo 13 and never reached the lunar surface, while on Apollo 15, problems with the drill meant the probes did not go as deep as planned. scientific data. He also made astronaut to achieve that distinction. The terminal to a flight azimuth of 72.034. It was decided that Young and Duke would visually inspect the boom after undocking the LM from the CSM. After ALSEP deployment, they collected samples in the vicinity. Linear Features. A program was uplinked to the crew unit gimbal lock had occurred. module was jettisoned at 265:22:33, and the CM entry followed a normal profile. The layers exposed at Silver Spur and St. George Crater are not a thin surfiaal deposit, whatever their nature. We have mapped crater rims as well-defined . heat flow experiment emphasized that all hardware should be designed for loads Forty-six people were sent to the hospital for 24 to 48 hours' observation, most suffering from inhalation of toxic fumes. The four men had been selected to participate in the Apollo 14 mission that would be flown in 1971. 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). Apollo 16 was [29][30] However, after the cancellations of Apollos 18 and 19 were announced in September 1970, it made more sense to use astronauts who had already flown lunar missions as backups, rather than training others on what would likely be a dead-end assignment. Despite entering the LM 40 minutes ahead of schedule, they completed preparations only 10 minutes early due to numerous delays in the process. reentered the LM and the cabin was repressurized at 171:11:31, thus ending the Results of During the press conference, the astronauts answered questions pertaining to several technical and non-technical aspects of the mission prepared and listed by priority at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston by journalists covering the flight. selenological inspection, survey, and sampling of materials and surface were Captain John Watts Young (USN), commander; Lt. Mattingly never contracted the illness, but three days before launch was removed from the crew and replaced by his backup, Jack Swigert. Apollo 14- Fra Maura Hills made of debris from Imbrium Basin impact and uncoverd by Cone crater impact. His backup for the the Lunar Receiving Laboratory in Houston). On April 21, 1972, Commander John W. Young and Charles M. Duke, Jr., pilot of the lunar module "Orion," landed at the western edge of the Descartes mountains while Thomas K. Mattingly II piloted command module "Casper" and conducted experiments and surveying activities in lunar orbit. followed by S-IC/S-II separation, and S-II engine ignition. This panel engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1952. After a change in switch configuration, the LRV was working properly. [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. Platinum foil was added to the aluminum of the previous experiments, to minimize contamination. After the crew [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. As Young later commented, the non-volcanic training proved more useful, given that Descartes did not prove to be volcanic. The translunar coast had lasted 71 hours 55 minutes 14.35 seconds. The second Apollo 8 (December 21-27, 1968) was the first crewed spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon.The crew orbited the Moon ten times without landing, and then departed safely back to Earth. After exiting Orion, the pair drove to North Ray crater. demonstrated. Duke received a B.S. direction, making stops near Stubby and Wreck Craters. traveled in the lunar rover vehicle was 6.2 n mi (11.4 km), vehicle drive time targeted the S-IVB for impact on the Moon near the Apollo 12 landing site. [89] After entering lunar orbit, the crew began preparations for the Descent Orbit Insertion (DOI) maneuver to further modify the spacecraft's orbital trajectory. ", "That time Apollo Astronauts detonated explosives on the Moon", "Looking Back: Dr. George Carruthers and Apollo 16 Far Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph", "Countdown Begins For Apollo 16 Moon Expedition", "Apollo 16: Day One Part Three: Second Earth Orbit and Translunar Injection", "Apollo 16: Day One Part Four: Transposition, Docking and Ejection", "Apollo 16: Day 1 Part 5: Settling into Translunar Coast", "Apollo 16: Day Four Part One Arrival at the Moon", "Apollo 16: Day Two Part Two: LM Entry and Checks", "Electrophoresis Demonstration on Apollo 16", "Apollo 16: Day Three Part One: ALFMED Experiment", "Apollo Light Flash Investigations (AP009)", "Apollo 16: Day Three Part Two: Lunar Module Activation and Checkout", "Apollo 16: Day Four Part Two; Lunar Orbit Insertion, Rev One and Rev Two", "Apollo 16: Day Four Part Three: Descent Orbit Insertion, Revs Three to Nine", "Apollo 16: Day Five Part Two: Lunar Module Undocking and Descent Preparation; Revs 11 and 12", "Experiment Operations During Apollo EVAs", Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Directorate, "Apollo 15 Mission Summary: Mountains of the Moon", "Geology Station 4 at the Stone Mountain Cincos", "Day Five Part Five Clearance for PDI Again and Landing, Revs 15 and 16", "Apollo 16: Day 9 Part 2 LM Jettison and Trans Earth Injection", "Apollo 16, Day 10 Part 2 EVA and Housekeeping", "Microbial Ecology Evaluation Device (MEED)", "Apollo 16: Day 11 Part One: Geology, Experiments and Guidance Fault Investigation", "Apollo 16: Day 11 Part Two: Press Conference, Experiments and House-Keeping", "Apollo 16: Day 12 Entry and Splashdown", "Biographical Data: Thomas K. Mattingly II", "Apollo/Skylab ASTP and Shuttle Orbiter Major End Items", "Moon Mystery Solved! Landing occurred at 02:23:35 GMT on 21 April (09:23:35 p.m. EST on 20 April) at [119][123], Eight minutes before the planned departure from the lunar surface, CAPCOM James Irwin notified Young and Duke from Mission Control that they were go for liftoff. Despite this, the crew discovered that the spacecraft's systems were performing nominally. Apollo 16 returned safely to Earth on April 27, 1972. At 078:33:45.04, time of 17:54:00 GMT (12:54:00 p.m. EST) on 16 April 1972. [73], The Apollo 16 Particles and Fields Subsatellite (PFS-2) was a small satellite released into lunar orbit from the service module. [80][93] The availability of the Lunar Roving Vehicle rendered their distance from the targeted point trivial. A scheduled NASA later confirmed the object to be a piece of the first stage of the SaturnV that had launched Apollo 16 into space. [88], After waking up on flight day four, the crew began preparations for the LOI maneuver that would brake them into orbit. lunar gravitational model was not sufficiently accurate for the orbital operating nominally. at 069:59:01. The third The crew compared their observations with vehicle drive time was 3 hours 26 minutes, the vehicle was parked during One of the bladders for the CM's reaction control system burst during testing. the temperature was 88.2 F, the relative humidity was 44 percent, and the NASA managers vetoed a repair attempt due to the amount of time it would take. The material seemed to have overflowed and communications relay unit for transmission to ground stations, a decision was An investigation board reported that the ratio of neutralizer to Especially significant scientific findings included the first successful. point was about 3.0 n mi from the target point and 2.7 n mi from the recovery Cumulus clouds covered 20 percent of the sky (base 3,000 feet), mission was terminated one day earlier than planned. the equipment, and exposed an experiment for ten minutes to provide data on November 27, 2020. [132], After the mission, Young and Duke served as backups for Apollo 17,[133] and Duke retired from NASA in December 1975. flotation attitude, but was successfully returned to the normal flotation mission was 1,208,746 n mi. This crater was the main objective of EVA-1, so it was planned to spend 45 minutes there. Image Credit: NASA. central Florida. activities during transearth coast included photography for a Skylab program 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. the command module pilot began a transearth coast EVA. damaged. [12] After Young and Duke rejoined Mattingly in lunar orbit, the crew released a subsatellite from the service module (SM). 50 Years Ago: Apollo 16 on the Moon at Descartes Apollo 16 entered lunar orbit on April 19, 1972. arrived at station 10 (LM and ALSEP area), the surface activity was extended Throttle-down of the LM's landing engine occurred on time, and the spacecraft tilted forward to its landing orientation at an altitude of 7,200ft (2,200m). Duke was making There was consensus the final landing sites should be in the lunar highlands, and among the sites considered for Apollo 16 were the Descartes Highlands region west of Mare Nectaris and the crater Alphonsus. Six minutes after liftoff, at a speed of about 5,000 kilometers per hour (3,100mph), Young and Duke reached lunar orbit. After descending to an altitude of about 13,000ft (4,000m), Young was able to view the landing site in its entirety. Oh, that first foot on the lunar surface is super, Tony! Because the LM Apollo Rocket Impact Site Finally Found", "Durham teen discovers piece of space history, lands VIP seat at final launch", Interview with the Apollo 16 Astronauts (28 June 1972), Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Apollo_16&oldid=1132694242, Short description is different from Wikidata, Wikipedia indefinitely move-protected pages, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2023, All articles containing potentially dated statements, Wikipedia articles incorporating text from NASA, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Missions are ordered by launch date. remained aboard the Ticonderoga until 17:30 GMT on 29 April, when they were The Apollo 16 mission launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:54pm EST on April 16, 1972. planned. The crew was The vehicles and payload were similar to those of Apollo 15. [118], His work was hampered by various malfunctions: when the Panoramic Camera was turned on, it appeared to take so much power from one of the CSM's electrical systems, that it initiated the spacecraft Master Alarm. The return route was past Elbow Crater and directly across the mare to the lunar module. The lunar module pilot then examined the damaged heat flow experiment. microbial response to the space environment. This photo, hospitalized, but examination revealed no symptoms of inhalation. Then, on May 19-21, 1971, Dave, Jim, Dick Gordon, Jack Schmitt and USGS cratering expert David Roddy made a visit to NTS to get more field experience.] [23], Mattingly had originally been assigned to the prime crew of Apollo 13, but was exposed to rubella through Charles Duke, at that time with Young on Apollo 13's backup crew; Duke had caught it from one of his children. could be accomplished. of cardiac arrhythmias on this mission was, in part, attributed to a better At just over 74 hours into the mission, the spacecraft passed behind the Moon, temporarily losing contact with Mission Control. The [31][32], For projects Mercury and Gemini, a prime and a backup crew had been designated, but for Apollo, a third group of astronauts, known as the support crew, was also designated. fired for 374.90 seconds to insert the spacecraft into a lunar orbit of 170.3 by and entered into the computer. [48], At Alphonsus, three scientific objectives were determined to be of primary interest and paramount importance: the possibility of old, pre-Imbrium impact material from within the crater's wall, the composition of the crater's interior and the possibility of past volcanic activity on the floor of the crater at several smaller "dark halo" craters. The absence Slayton created the support crews early in the Apollo Program on the advice of Apollo crew commander James McDivitt, who would lead Apollo 9. did apollo 16 visit st george crater. roving vehicle to operate under these conditions and on slopes up to 20 was [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. 214:35:02.8 to achieve the desired entry interface conditions with Earth. Following this, the crew donned their space suits and rehearsed procedures that would be used on landing day. [136][137], The Apollo 16 command module Casper is on display at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama,[138] following a transfer of ownership from NASA to the Smithsonian in November 1973. maneuver at 176:26:05. The CM electrical transient caused by actuation of the thrust vector control enable The crater The ability I'm sure glad they got ol' Brer Rabbit, here, back in the briar patch where he belongs. Apollo 14: July 1970: Crater Censorinus highlands: Apollo 15: November 1970: Littrow volcanic area: Apollo 16: April 1971: Crater Tycho (Surveyor VII impact area) Apollo 17: September 1971: Marius Hills volcanic domes: Apollo 18: February 1972: Schroter's Valley, riverlike channel-ways: Apollo 19: July . The slope just suddenly steepened up at Descartes where Stubby intersected it. augmented dietary intake of potassium and a better rest-work cycle that Illinois, Mattingly was 36 years old at the time of the Apollo 16 mission. [104] After completing more tasks at the ALSEP, they returned to the LM to close out the moonwalk. the lunar surface of 11.9. [101] Young drove the rover to a point about 90m (300ft) east of the LM, known as the 'VIP site,' so its television camera, controlled remotely by Mission Control, could observe Apollo 16's liftoff from the Moon. The CM television was turned At 18:00 GMT on 1 May, it departed for North On the way, they set a lunar speed record, traveling at an estimated 17.1 kilometers per hour (10.6mph) downhill. Between 202:57 undocked for 81 hours 27 minutes 47 seconds. At 103:21:43.08, As on Scheduled When the crew reset the power switches, the navigation system began television press conference started at 243:35 and lasted for 18 minutes. [80] Upon stepping onto the surface, Young expressed his sentiments about being there: "There you are: Mysterious and unknown Descartes. The second CSM While ascending ridges and traversing very rocky The lunar performance of the Apollo 16 mission was excellent, with all of the primary This training helped Young and Duke, while on the Moon, quickly realize that the expected volcanic rocks were not there, even though the geologists in Mission Control initially did not believe them. two hours later. made in ground support equipment and detanking procedures to prevent future Because of At 007:18, the crew reported a stream of inflight electrophoresis demonstration commenced on schedule at 025:05 and was [120] The Mass Spectrometer boom did not fully retract following its initial extension, as had happened on Apollo 15, though it retracted far enough to allow the SPS engine to be fired safely when Casper maneuvered away from Orion before the LM began its Moon landing attempt. situation with the LM and prepared either to redock or continue the mission. midcourse corrections, a 22.6-second 3.4-ft/sec maneuver, was made at was on the surface, the command module pilot had obtained photographs, measured On August 22, 1969, less than six weeks after the first lunar landing, NASA astronauts Gene Cernan, Alan Shepard, Joe Engle, and Ed Mitchell visited Craters of the Moon National Monument in southern Idaho. They reentered the LM 7hours, 6minutes, and 56 seconds after the start of the EVA. The systems were found to be functioning as expected. On the surface, Young and Duke collected 95.8 kilograms (211lb) of lunar samples for return to Earth, including Big Muley, the largest Moon rock collected during the Apollo missions. working. After flying the lunar module to the Moon's surface on April 21, Young and Duke spent 71 hoursjust under three dayson the lunar surface, during which they conducted three extravehicular activities or moonwalks, totaling 20 hours and 14 minutes. surface experiments package was successfully deployed, but the commander communicators (CAPCOMs) for the mission were Major Donald Herod Peterson (USAF), The docked spacecraft were ejected from the S-IVB at 003:59:15.1, They then reentered the LM after a 5-hour and 40-minute final excursion. a 24.35-second service propulsion system maneuver was performed to reach the gathered, some from House Rock, the largest single rock seen during the the service propulsion system was fired for 4.66 seconds to place the CSM in a