APOLLO 16

Mission

Kind: Crewed lunar landing (J)

State: successful

Place: Moon

Operator: NASA

Date

Start:

Duration: 11 days, 1 hour, 51 minutes, 5 seconds

Mission Ending

"Life's like a movie, write your own ending. Keep believing, keep pretending." - Jim Henson

Rocket

Rocket: Saturn V SA-511

Kind: NASA

Manufacturer: CSM: North American RockwellLM: Grumman

Mass: 107,226 pounds (48,637 kg)

Launch Site: Kennedy LC-39A

Flyby

"Requesting permission for flyby." Maverick - Top Gun

Orbit

Reference System: Selenocentric

1º Orbit: Lunar

Lander

Place: Lunar

Region: Descartes Highlands8°58′23″S 15°30′01″E / 8.97301°S 15.50019°E / -8.97301, 15.50019

Date: April 21, 1972, 02:23:35 UTC

Component: Lunar module

Apollo 16 was the tenth crewed mission in the United States Apollo space program, the fifth and penultimate to land on the Moon, and the second to land in the lunar highlands. The second of Apollo's "J missions," it was crewed by Commander John Young, Lunar Module Pilot Charles Duke and Command Module Pilot Ken Mattingly. Launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:54 PM EST on April 16, 1972, the mission lasted 11 days, 1 hour, and 51 minutes, and concluded at 2:45 p.m. EST on April 27. Young and Duke spent 71 hours—just under three days—on the lunar surface, during which they conducted three extra-vehicular activities or moonwalks, totaling 20 hours and 14 minutes. The pair drove the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV), the second produced and used on the Moon, for 26.7 kilometers (16.6 mi). On the surface, Young and Duke collected 95.8 kilograms (211 lb) of lunar samples for return to Earth, while Command Module Pilot Ken Mattingly orbited in the command and service module (CSM) above to perform observations. Mattingly, staying with the command module, spent 126 hours and 64 revolutions in lunar orbit. After Young and Duke rejoined Mattingly in lunar orbit, the crew released a subsatellite from the service module (SM). During the return trip to Earth, Mattingly performed a one-hour spacewalk to retrieve several film cassettes from the exterior of the service module. Apollo 16's landing spot in the highlands was chosen to allow the astronauts to gather geologically older lunar material than the samples obtained in three of the first four Moon landings, which were in or near lunar maria (Apollo 14 landed in the Fra Mauro Highlands). Samples from the Descartes Formation and the Cayley Formation disproved a hypothesis that the formations were volcanic in origin.