APOLLO 16: LUNE, HISTOIRE INCROYABLE... #Apollo50 - Une dose d'espace #69

Video from the channel AstroKevin, la Chaîne Espace et Astronomie about Apollo 16, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 13:07. Language: French. Video type: Documentary.

An educational piece about Apollo 16 published for the mission's fiftieth anniversary. It broadly covers its development, the scientific instruments it carried, the choice of landing site and its results, and ends with the anecdote of Ken Mattingly's lost wedding ring.

Launched on April 16, 1972, with John Young as commander, Ken Mattingly as command module pilot and Charles Duke as lunar module pilot, it was the second-to-last mission of the Apollo program. It landed on the Moon on April 21 and lifted off on the 24th, already in the program's most scientific phase, with the LRV lunar rover carried over from Apollo 15. The chosen site was the highlands near the Descartes crater, far from the Apollo 14 and 15 sites, which also expanded the lunar seismic network. The crew splashed down on April 27 in the South Pacific, about 300 km from Christmas Island.

The ALSEP package included passive and active seismometers, a magnetometer and a heat flow probe; the latter's cable was damaged during deployment. The small subsatellite released into lunar orbit did not reach its intended orbit. The S-IVB stage's impact crater, unlocated for years, was identified in 2015 using Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter data, about 30 km from the estimated zone. An ultraviolet camera set up on the surface captured the first photograph of Earth's geocorona in the Lyman-alpha line. The ALSEP stations were shut down in 1977. During the return spacewalk, Mattingly's wedding ring, lost inside the cabin, floated out, bounced off his helmet and Duke managed to catch it.