Apollo 17 was the last of the United States' manned lunar missions, but was the first night launch of the manned space program. The spacecraft was launched atop a Saturn V rocket at 12:33 a.m. EST on December 7, 1972 from Launch Complex 39 at the Kennedy Space Center. The Apollo 17 was manned by Captain Eugene A. Cernan, Commander; Commander Ronald E. Evans, Command Module Pilot; and Dr. Harrison H. Schmitt, Lunar Module Pilot.
Its scientific objectives included geological surveying and sampling of materials and surface features in a preselected area of the Taurus-Littrow region, deploying and activating surface experiments, and conducting inflight experiments and photographic tasks during lunar orbit and transearth coast (TEC). These objectives included: Deployed experimetns such as the Apollo lunar surface experiment package (ALSEP) with a Heat Flow experiment, Lunar seismic profiling (LSP), Lunar surface gravimeter (LSG), Lunar atmospheric composition experiment (LACE) and Lunar ejecta and meteorites (LEAM). The mission also included Lunar Sampling and Lunar orbital experiments. Biomedical experiments included the Biostack II Experiment and the BIOCORE experiment. During the three EVA's, which lasted for a total of 21 hours 4 minutes, a total of 243 pounds of samples was collected.
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