Apollo 16

Apollo 16 was the tenth crewed mission in the United States Apollo space program, run by NASA. It was the fifth and last but one mission to land on the Moon. Apollo 16 launched on April 16, 1972, from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The astronauts were Commander John Young, Lunar Module Pilot Charles Duke, and Command Module Pilot Ken Mattingly.

The astronauts had a few small problems on their way to the Moon, like a delay with the spacecraft's main engine. After landing on the Moon on April 21, Young and Duke spent almost three days exploring the lunar surface. They drove a special vehicle called the Lunar Roving Vehicle for over 26 kilometers and collected many rocks and samples, including a big one called Big Muley. Meanwhile, Mattingly flew around the Moon in the command and service module, taking photos and doing experiments. The crew came back safely to Earth on April 27, 1972.

Crew and key Mission Control personnel

John Young was the mission commander for Apollo 16. He was 41 years old and had flown in space three times before. He became the second American to fly in space four times. Thomas Kenneth "Ken" Mattingly was the command module pilot. Charles Duke was the lunar module pilot and was the youngest astronaut to walk on the Moon.

The backup crew included Fred W. Haise Jr., Stuart A. Roosa, and Edgar D. Mitchell. Support crew members helped prepare the mission. The flight directors and capsule communicators made sure the mission was safe and successful.

Mission insignia and call signs

The Apollo 16 mission patch shows an American eagle and a red, white, and blue shield. This stands for the people of the United States. The gray background represents the Moon. Over the shield is a gold design of NASA orbiting the Moon. Along the border are 16 stars for the mission number and the crew members’ names: Young, Mattingly, and Duke. The crew made the design with help from Barbara Matelski at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston.

The Lunar Module was named “Orion” by Young and Duke because it is a bright group of stars they could see during their trip. Mattingly named the command module “Casper” after Casper the Friendly Ghost, choosing a fun name to balance the serious work of the mission.

Planning and training

Apollo 16 was the second of the Apollo program's "J missions." This meant it had more time on the Moon for science. It used a special vehicle called the Lunar Roving Vehicle. Scientists wanted to learn more about the Moon's early history. They chose a place called the Descartes Highlands to land. Some thought it might have been formed by old volcanic activity, but this was not true.

The team preparing for Apollo 16 trained very hard. They studied rocks and landforms to know what they might find on the Moon. They visited places on Earth that look like parts of the Moon, such as the Sudbury Basin in Canada. This place has a big crater made long ago by a meteorite. This helped them learn about impacts, which the Moon has many of. The astronauts also practiced wearing their space suits, moving in low gravity, collecting samples, and driving the Lunar Roving Vehicle. They spent a lot of time learning so they could do their job well when they landed on the Moon.

Equipment

Apollo 16 used a Saturn V rocket to travel to the Moon. This rocket, called AS-511, was very similar to the one used for Apollo 15. It had four special rockets added to the bottom to keep it safe after it was thrown away.

Apollo 16 carried science tools to the Moon to work after the astronauts left. These tools studied the Moon's surface and inside. They measured Moon earthquakes, heat from inside the Moon, and the Moon's magnetic field. There was also a special camera to take pictures of space without Earth's light. These tools helped scientists learn more about the Moon and space.

Mission events

Parts of the spacecraft and rocket started arriving at Kennedy Space Center in July 1970 and were all there by September 1971. Apollo 16 was supposed to launch on March 17, 1972. But a problem with one of the spacecraft’s systems and some other small issues made them move the launch to April 16. The rocket was moved back and forth from the building where it was prepared to the launch pad a few times during this time.

The Apollo 16 mission launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:54 pm EST on April 16, 1972. The launch went well, and the crew felt vibrations similar to past missions. The spacecraft entered orbit around Earth less than 12 minutes after taking off.

After reaching orbit, the crew got used to the zero-gravity and got the spacecraft ready for the big burn that would send them to the Moon. They had some small technical problems while in Earth’s orbit but fixed them or worked around them.

By the time Mission Control gave the crew their wake-up call for the second day of the flight, the spacecraft was about 112,220 miles from Earth, moving at about 1.622 km/s. Days two and three were mostly for getting ready, with some spacecraft checks and science work.

The crew got ready to use the Lunar Module and separate it from the rest of the spacecraft as they started the fifth day. The landing on the Moon happened a bit later than planned, at 104 hours, 29 minutes, and 35 seconds into the mission, on April 21.

After landing, Young and Duke turned off some of the Lunar Module’s systems to save power and then had their first meal on the surface.

After waking up on April 21, Young and Duke had breakfast and got ready for their first walk on the Moon. Young went out first, and Duke followed soon after. Young became the ninth person to walk on the Moon, and Duke became the tenth.

Their first job was to set up the Lunar Roving Vehicle and some other tools. This went well. Young noticed that the back steering of the rover wasn’t working at first, but it started working again later. They set up a television camera and put up the United States flag.

Next, they set up some science equipment. Then they collected samples nearby.

They then went to Buster Crater, a small crater near a bigger one called Spook Crater. There, Duke took pictures, and Young set up more science tools. By this time, scientists were starting to change their ideas about what they thought they’d find on the Moon.

After waking up a little earlier than planned, they talked about their plans for the day with Mission Control. Their main goal was to visit Stone Mountain and some craters nearby. They drove there in the lunar rover, going about 3.8 km from the Lunar Module. They went up to a high point and enjoyed the view before collecting more samples.

On their last day on the Moon, they went to North Ray crater, the biggest crater any Apollo mission had visited. After getting out of the lunar rover, they took pictures of the big, deep crater and looked at a huge boulder they called ‘House Rock’. They collected samples there that helped scientists learn more about the Moon.

After the Lunar Module was ready to leave the Moon, Young and Duke launched it back up. Six minutes later, they met up with the spacecraft waiting in orbit.

The next day, they threw away the used-up part of the Lunar Module. Then they released a small satellite into orbit around the Moon.

During the trip back to Earth, one of the astronauts did a short spacewalk to get films from the cameras.

When it was time to come back to Earth, the crew did a final check and then prepared for reentry. The spacecraft separated from the rest of the rocket about ten minutes before entering Earth’s atmosphere. Apollo 16 entered the atmosphere and, after the parachutes opened, landed in the Pacific Ocean southeast of Kiritimati. The crew was picked up by the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga and were safe.

Scientific results and aftermath

When scientists studied the rocks brought back from the Moon, they learned that the Cayley Formation was not made by volcanic activity. They were unsure about the Descartes Formation because they couldn’t tell if any rocks came from there. They found no proof that Stone Mountain was volcanic.

One reason Descartes was chosen for the landing was that it looked different from other Apollo landing spots. But the rocks there were very similar to those found at the Fra Mauro Formation, where Apollo 14 landed.

Scientists realized they had been too sure that Cayley was volcanic and didn’t think of other ideas. They also learned that the Moon doesn’t have much of the same geologic history as Earth. So, comparing the Moon to Earth wasn’t a good way to understand it. They concluded that there are very few, if any, volcanic mountains on the Moon. These discoveries were helped by observations from Mattingly, the first crew member to use binoculars while looking at the Moon from orbit. He saw that the Descartes Formation didn’t look special from the Moon’s orbit—it fit in with the Mare Imbrium area.

Other important findings from Apollo 16 included the discovery of two new auroral belts around Earth. After the mission, Young and Duke helped prepare for Apollo 17. Duke left NASA in December 1975. Both Young and Mattingly later flew on the Space Shuttle. Young commanded the first Shuttle mission, STS-1, in 1981 and another mission, STS-9, in 1983. He retired from NASA in 2004. Mattingly also commanded two Shuttle missions, STS-4 in 1982 and STS-51-C in 1985, before leaving NASA in 1985.

Locations of spacecraft and other equipment

The Ticonderoga brought the Apollo 16 command module to the North Island Naval Air Station near San Diego, California, in May 1972.

The Apollo 16 command module Casper is displayed at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The Lunar Module’s top part separated from the spacecraft in April 1972 and orbited the Moon for about a year. Its crash site is still unknown.

Duke left two special items on the Moon: a photo of his family and a medal to honor the United States Air Force’s 25th anniversary.

In 2006, a young boy named Kevin Schanze found a piece of metal on his beach in Bath, North Carolina. It was part of the rocket that launched Apollo 16. Kevin returned it to NASA, and his family got a special tour of the Kennedy Space Center.