Topic: Apollo 16

NASA says Apollo 12, Mars 2020 are Two of a Space Kind

November 21, 2019 |

Pasadena, CA – NASA says fifty years ago today, during their second moonwalk, Charles “Pete” Conrad Jr. and Alan Bean became the first humans to reach out and touch a spacecraft that had previously landed on another celestial body.

NASA’s 1969 Apollo 12 Moon mission and the upcoming Mars 2020 mission to the Red Planet may be separated by half a century and targets that are 100 million miles apart, but they share several mission goals unique in the annals of space exploration.

“We on the Mars 2020 project feel a special kinship with the crew of Apollo 12,” said John McNamee, Mars 2020 project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

(Left) Apollo 12 astronaut Charles “Pete” Conrad Jr. stands beside NASA’s Surveyor 3 spacecraft; the lunar module Intrepid can be seen in the distance. Apollo 12 landed on the Moon’s Ocean of Storms on Nov. 20, 1969. (Right) Mars 2020 rover, seen here in an artist’s concept, will make history’s most accurate landing on a planetary body when it lands at Mars’ Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA Mourns the Passing of Astronaut John Young

January 8, 2018 |

NASA Headquarters

Washington, D.C. – Astronaut John Young, who walked on the Moon during Apollo 16 and commanded the first space shuttle mission, died Friday, January 5th, 2018, at the age of 87 from complications of pneumonia. Young began his impressive career at NASA in 1962, when he was selected from among hundreds of young pilots to join NASA’s second astronaut class, known as the “New Nine.”

“Today, NASA and the world have lost a pioneer,” acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot said in a statement. “Astronaut John Young’s storied career spanned three generations of spaceflight; we will stand on his shoulders as we look toward the next human frontier.

John Young’s official astronaut portrait. (NASA)

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NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity passes Crater that’s reminder of Apollo 16 mission

June 17, 2017 |

Written by Laurie Cantillo / Dwayne Brown
NASA Headquarters

Washington, D.C. – NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity passed near a young crater this spring during the 45th anniversary of Apollo 16’s trip to Earth’s moon, prompting a connection between two missions.

Opportunity’s science team informally named the Martian feature “Orion Crater.” The name honors the Apollo 16 lunar module, Orion, which carried astronauts John Young and Charles Duke to and from the surface of the moon in April 1972 while crewmate Ken Mattingly piloted the Apollo 16 command module, Casper, in orbit around the moon. Orion is also the name of NASA’s new spacecraft that will carry humans into deep space and sustain them during travel beyond Earth orbit.

NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover passed near this small, relatively fresh crater in April 2017, during the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 16 mission to the moon. (NASA)

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Powerful Pixels: Mapping the “Apollo Zone”

January 5, 2012 |

Written by Jessica Culler
NASA’s Ames Research Center

Moffett Field, CA – Grayscale pixels – up close, they look like black, white or grey squares. But when you zoom out to see the bigger picture, they can create a digital photograph, like the one of our moon below:

For NASA researchers, pixels are much more – they are precious data that help us understand where we came from, where we’ve been, and where we’re going.

At NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, computer scientists have made a giant leap forward to pull as much information from imperfect static images as possible. With their advancement in image processing algorithms, the legacy data from the Apollo Metric Camera onboard Apollo 15, 16 and 17 can be transformed into an informative and immersive 3D mosaic map of a large and scientifically interesting part of the moon.

Mosaic of the near side of the moon as taken by the Clementine star trackers. The images were taken on March 15th, 1994. (Credit: NASA)

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