Launch from Cape Canaveral (
KSC); landing 500 km
north of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean.
Fourth moon landing in space
history. The landing site was the Hadley Apennine region near Apennine
Mountains. Lunar surface stay-time 66h 55m.
Three
EVAs were
performed by
Scott
and
Irwin. First
EVA on
31.07.1971 (6h 33m). The astronauts collected and stowed a contingency sample,
unpacked the
ALSEP
and other experiments, and prepared the lunar roving vehicle (
LRV) for operations.
The
LRV was used for
the first time. Second
EVA on
01.08.1971 (7h 12m). During this
EVA the crew
completed the placement of heat flow experiment probes (which were emplaced
during the first
EVA traverse),
collected a core sample, and deployed the American flag. They also stowed the
sample container and the film with photos from the Elbow and St.George crater
near the Hadley-Rille into the
LM (Falcon). Third and final
EVA by
Scott
and
Irwin on 02.08.1971 (5h 01m). During the third
EVA Commander
Scott
struggled and fell but experienced no difficulty in getting up. Prior to
leaving the lunar surface,
Scott
performed an experiment, which Galileo described 300 years earlier. In one hand
a hammer and in the other a falcon feather,
Scott
let fall down both to the same time, and both dropped on the lunar surface to
the same time - so Galileo was right. All in all 77.31 kg of material were
gathered.
Worden performed a 39 minutes trans Earth
EVA to remove
film cassettes from the cameras in the scientific instrument module. He had
completed 34 lunar orbits in the
CSM (called
Endeavour), while his fellow astronauts were on the lunar surface, and
performed several scientific instrument module experiments and cameras to
obtain different data.
One of the three main parachutes failed; that
results in hard splashdown. The recovery ship was
USS
Okinawa.
