Apollo 15 - L'apogée de l'exploration lunaire - Documentaire espace 2025

Video from the channel Stardust - La Chaîne Air & Espace about Apollo 15, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 1:15:19. Language: French. Video type: Documentary.

Recently produced French-language documentary that covers the Apollo 15 mission, the first dedicated to advanced exploration and lunar geology. It combines mission footage with written accounts from David Scott and Al Worden and an interview with geologist Farouk El-Baz, who took part in selecting the landing sites and training the astronauts.

In 1970, NASA budget cuts halt production of the Saturn V, and in September the Apollo 18, 19 and 20 missions are cancelled. Apollo 15 becomes a J-type mission, with a longer stay and more scientific payload. Because of this, the CSM-111 and LM-9 are replaced by the CSM-112 and LM-10, and the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) makes its debut, with wire-mesh titanium wheels and a television camera operated from Houston. For safety, its range is limited to 9 km. The crew, the first made up entirely of USAF pilots, consists of David Scott, Jim Irwin and Al Worden. Scott and Irwin receive geology training from professor Lee Silver. The chosen site is Hadley–Apennine, next to Hadley Rille.

The launch takes place on 26 July 1971. The lunar module Falcon lands on a slope of about 10°, and it is the first time the crew sleeps on the Moon without their suits. During the three surface excursions, the rover's front steering fails, the drilling probe jams at 1.70 m, and the astronauts collect the anorthosite known as the Genesis Rock (sample 15415). Scott drops a hammer and a falcon feather at the same time as a tribute to Galileo and leaves the Fallen Astronaut statuette. The PFS-1 subsatellite is released from lunar orbit, and Worden performs a deep-space spacewalk to retrieve the camera cassettes. The capsule splashed down on 7 August 1971 with one of its three parachutes damaged by the RCS propellant purge. It was recovered by the USS Okinawa, and it was the first crew not to undergo quarantine. According to El-Baz, Apollo 15 and Apollo 17 were key to understanding the relationship between Earth and the Moon.