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Period: to
space missions since 1952
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pioneer 3/4
Following the unsuccessful USAF/NASA Pioneer Missions 0, 1, and 2 lunar missions, the U.S. Army and NASA launched 2 more lunar missions. Smaller than the previous Pioneers, Pioneer 3 and 4 each carried only a single experiment to detect cosmic radiation. Both vehicles were planned to flyby the moon and return data about the Earth and Moon's radiation environment. The launch of Pioneer 3 failed when the launch vehicle first's stage cut-off prematurely. Although Pioneer 3 did not achieve escape ve -
apollo 13
apollo was supposed to land in the Fra Mauro area. An explosion on board forced apollo 13 to circle the moon without landing. The Fra Mauro site was reassigned to apollo -
apollo 11
The mission plan of Apollo 11 was to land two men on the lunar surface and return them safely to Earth. The launch took place at Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A on July 16, 1969, at 08:32 a.m. EST. The spaccraft carried a crew of three: Mission Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. The mission evaluation concluded that all mission tasks were completed satisfactorily. -
apollo 12
Apollo 12 was launched at 11:22:00 a.m. EST on November 14, 1969. The mission plan called for a landing in the Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms) area. The launch took place from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The spacecraft was boosted into space atop a Saturn 5 rocket. After confirming that there was no damage from lightning strikes during the launch, the crew proceeded with the mission as planned. The post-flight evaluation of the mission was that all mission go -
apollo 14
The Apollo 14 mission, with a crew including Alan Shepard Jr., Stuart A. Roosa, and Edgar D. Mitchell, was launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on January 31, 1971. It was the third mission to achieve lunar landing. The spacecraft landed in the Fra Mauro highlands, the same area that was to have been explored on Apollo 13. Although the primary mission objectives for Apollo 14 were the same as those of Apollo 13, provisions were made for returning a significantly greater quantity of lunar -
apollo 15
Apollo 15 was the first of the three "J" missions designed to conduct exploration of the Moon over longer periods, over greater ranges, and with more instruments for scientific data acquisition than on previous Apollo missions. Major modifications and augmentations to the basic Apollo hardware were made. The most significant change was the installation of a scientific instrument module in one of the service module bays for scientific investigations from lunar orbit. Other hardware changes consis -
apollo 16
The successful Apollo 16 manned lunar-landing mission was the second in a series of three J-type missions planned for the Apollo program. These missions were characterized by a larger scientific payload, increased hardware capabiblity, and the battery-powered lunar roving vehicle. These additions resulted in benefits to the Apollo 16 mission, such as a mission of 11.1 days, a stay on the lunar surface of 71 hours, a lunar surface traverse distance of approximately 27 kilometers, and a scientific -
apollo 17
The splashdown and recovery of the Apollo 17 crew marked the end of the Apollo flight program. The mission plan was for the spacecraft to land in the Moon's Taurus-Littrow region near the rim of the Serenitatis Basin, which seemed to have all the elements geologists would want to explore in this final mission. Cinder cones and steep-walled valleys with large boulders at their base presented the possibility of sampling both young volcanic rock from depth and older mountainous wall material at the
