fell NASA astronautsJohn Young, Charles Duke and Thomas Mattingly, have been on the moon 50 years ago, and to celebrate the anniversary, iconic images from the penultimate moon landing have been redrawn, RT reports.
Apollo 16 was the second of three NASA “J missions”, designed to focus primarily on science, rather than exploration or propaganda as with previous missions, launched on April 16, 1972, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Apollo 16, Andy Saunders, photographer and author of the upcoming book Apollo Remastered, restored and improved images the crew took during their 11-day mission.
Among them are pictures showing the moon’s horizon, Earth rising, family photos of astronauts sitting on the lunar regolith, and Jun Young’s “giant leap.”
Apollo Remastered is scheduled to be released in September, ahead of the 50th anniversary of the final mission, Apollo 17, in December of this year.
The mission began two years following NASA announced that there would be no new moon landing missions following Apollo 17 — so the crew launched with the knowledge that time was limited.
It included the Lunar Rover and more time on the lunar surface to explore than in previous flights.
The crew effectively lived and worked on the moon for three of the 11 days of the mission, the rest spent traveling.
Arguably, some of the issues they encountered actually facilitated some amazing photos, according to Saunders, who shared some of the photos he remastered on social media under the username AndySaunders_1.
The Apollo 16 mission was not without problems, and following reaching lunar orbit, and the lunar module (LM) separated from the Command and Service Module (CSM), the Command Module pilot Mattingly noticed a problem with the SPS main engine in the Command Service Module, which would be required to fire properly. Perfect for bringing them back to earth.
And in the four hours that Mission Control took to assess the problem and decide whether to abort the landing, Mattingly at CSM and John Young and Charlie Doke at LM had to visually retain the station. This means that they had to work to maintain a safe and consistent distance from each other in lunar orbit, but not lose contact. This led to an unusual image – showing the CSM satellite currently flying over the surface of the Moon.
While searching for Apollo Remastered, Doc tells Saunders that he was the one who took the stunning photo.
Saunders has previously shared images of the previous Apollo missions, as well as from the capsule of John Glenn’s first historic orbit around the Earth.
As the fifth landing on the Moon, Apollo 16 was the mission that demonstrated how confident astronauts living and working can be in 1/6th Earth’s gravity. And they felt comfortable enough to try to jump as high as possible, completely unnecessarily of course – one of these moments was captured in a classic photograph as Commander John Young performed a “jump salute” for his picture with the American flag and lunar module.
