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.

Duke and Young never found volcanic rocks while roaming around the moon's surface. They were safely aboard the Ticonderoga 37 minutes after splashdown. There, they hoped to find Descartes material that had not been contaminated by ejecta from South Ray Crater, a large crater south of the landing site.

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[7], Mattingly had originally been assigned to the prime crew of Apollo 13, but was exposed to rubella through Duke, at that time on the back-up crew for Apollo 13, who had caught it from one of his children. He also served as chairman of the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation based in Florida. Duke has lived in New Braunfels since the mid 1970s. "[84], Instead, something unexpected happened. As in the preceding mission, Young and Duke had a rover at their disposal, enabling them to cover nearly 17 miles (27 kilometers) and to collect nearly 212 pounds (96 kilograms) of rock and soil from 11 different sites.

“I think we can do it in the (2020s). Kristen Erickson Launch: All Apollo astronauts knew how hard it was to see your feet and feel what they were touching through the bulky spacesuit. Apollo 16 mission patch. At just over 74 hours into the mission, the spacecraft passed behind the Moon, losing direct contact with Mission Control. But Orion began to tumble, apparently because a circuit breaker for the guidance and navigation system had been left open. With the Apollo program, Young was the command module pilot on Apollo 10(1969) and helped perform the first docking above the surface of the moon.

10. At the request of Young and Duke, the moonwalk was extended by ten minutes. Command module Casper is on display at the Alabama Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. [7], After selecting the landing site for Apollo 16, sampling the Descartes and Cayley formations, two geologic units of the lunar highlands, was determined by mission planners to be the primary sampling interest of the mission.
This was the central lunar highlands, which was considered representative of three-fourths of the lunar surface. The award will be presented next Spring. The command module splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on April 27, 1972 after a mission elapsed time of 265 hours, 51 minutes, 5 seconds. NASA later confirmed the object to be a piece of the first stage of the Saturn V that had launched Apollo 16 into space. The next day, Young stood on the moon for the first time with his fists raised in happiness.

Despite this, the crew discovered that the spacecraft's systems were performing nominally. At 265 hours and 37 minutes into the mission, at a velocity of about 36,000 ft/s (11,000 m/s), Apollo 16 began atmospheric reentry. “General Duke is one of a mere dozen humans to have ever walked on the surface of the moon and looked back toward Earth,” said Ray Covey, chairman of the Texas Legislative Conference.

[84], The aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga delivered the Apollo 16 command module to the North Island Naval Air Station, near San Diego, California, on Friday, May 5, 1972. [39], The next morning, flight day five, Young and Duke ate breakfast and began preparations for the first extra-vehicular activity (EVA), or moonwalk. After exploring the surface, setting up experiments, taking pictures, collecting rock samples, etc., the astronauts would return to the CM for the journey back to Earth. What are the accomplishments of the Apollo 11 mission?

[27] The Sudbury Basin shows evidence of shatter cone geology familiarizing the Apollo crew with geologic evidence of a meteorite impact.