NASA Moon Missions Operations Manual

Apollo 17 was the last of six Moon landings carrying astronauts to different places on the lunar surface. The last three flights were greatly extended in duration, providing opportunity for three full working days on the surface. Each carried a Lunar Roving Vehicle, as well as a complex suite of science instruments that would continue to send back information for eight years after the crew returned to Earth.

This book majors on the hardware and the instruments developed for Apollo 15-17, and describes the engineering modifications to the Lunar Module and the Apollo spacecraft for this greatly expanded role, following on from the two H-series missions, Apollos 12 and 14. As it tracks the story of the flights it provides detailed descriptions and line drawings of equipment and experiments developed for these missions. The book concludes with details of the original plan for the remainder of the Apollo programme – Moon vehicles and habitats, orbiting stations and surface base camps.

Author: Dr David Baker worked with NASA on the Gemini, Apollo and Shuttle programmes between 1965 and 1990. He has written more than 100 books on space flight, aviation and military technology, and had more than 1,000 articles published. David is currently the editor of Spaceflight, the monthly space news magazine of the British Interplanetary Society, of which he is also a Fellow.