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Apollo
14 was the third mission in which humans walked on the lunar surface.
Apollo
14 was launched on 31 January 1971 from pad 39A of Kennedy Space
Center on a Saturn V.
On
5 February 1971 Commander Alan B. Shepard, Jr. and LM pilot Edgar
D. Mitchell landed in the hilly upland region 24 km north of the
rim of Fra Mauro crater at 3.6 S, 17.5 W.
The
astronauts made two moonwalk EVA's totaling 9 hours, 23 minutes,
one on 5 February and one on 6 February, during which the Apollo
lunar surface experiments package (ALSEP) was placed on the surface
of the moon, 42.9 kg of lunar samples were acquired, and photographs
were taken. At the end of the second EVA Shepard hit two golf balls.
Experiments were also performed from the CSM in equatorial orbit.
The
LM took off from the Moon on 6 February and the astronauts returned
to Earth on 9 February.
Performance
of the spacecraft, the third of the Apollo H-series missions, was
good for most aspects of the mission. The primary mission goals
of deployment of the ALSEP and other scientific experiments, collection
of lunar samples, surface photography, and photography, radio science
and other scientific experiments from orbit were achieved with the
exception of the full coverage planned for the Hycon camera.
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