Rovering
across the
Moon
Premier of the J-series mission
changed the game for Apollo 15
By Ben Evans
Four hundred miles (640 km) to the
north of the Moon’s equator lies a
place called Hadley: a small patch
of Mare Imbrium at the base of the
Apennine Mountains, some of which
rise to 4,000 feet (1,200 meters), and
a 25-mile (40 km) meandering gorge,
known as Hadley Rille.
In July 1971, Apollo 15 astronauts
Dave Scott and Jim Irwin expertly negotiated these forbidding landmarks
in the lunar module Falcon and set
down in one of the most visually
spectacular regions ever visited by
mankind. They brought back a scientific yield which revealed more about
the Moon’s origin and evolution than
ever before.
Forty-four years ago, this month
in July-August 1971, Apollo 15 conducted one of the most brilliant missions ever undertaken in the annals
of space science.
It is therefore ironic that this triumph actually arose from the ashes
of defeat. Original plans called for
22
22
four H-series lunar landing missions—
Apollo 12 through 15—which would
each spend 33 hours on the Moon
and feature two EVAs. The final
missions, belonging to the J-series,
would perform longer missions,
spend 70 hours on the surface, make
three EVAs and utilize a batterypowered rover. In September 1970,
everything changed when NASA
canceled one H-series mission and
one J-series mission; as a result, the
schedule shifted to maximise the
scientific harvest from the remaining
flights. Apollo 15 was upgraded to
the ambitious J-series and it was this
decision which altered its scope and
its place in history.
The countdown on 26 July 1971
was near-perfect. In fact, Launch Director Walter Kapryan described it as
“the most nominal countdown that
we have ever had”. The astronauts—
Scott, Irwin and command module
pilot Al Worden—were awakened
early that morning, breakfasted
on steak and eggs, caught a brief
nap as they were being suited-up
and were helped into their couches
aboard the Apollo 15 command
module, Endeavour, at around 7:00
a.m. EDT.
The clang of the hatch shutting
them in startled Irwin. “I think that is
when the reality of the situation hit
me,” he later wrote in his memoir,
To Rule the Night. “I realized I was
cut off from the world. This was the
moment I had been waiting for. It
wouldn’t be long now.” From his
couch on the right-hand side of the
spacecraft, Irwin had little to do and
had some brief respite to reflect on
his life, consider the enormity of the
mission ahead of him and, more than
anything, give himself over to an air
of anticipation and expectancy as
he waited for the Saturn V to boost
them toward the Moon.
Fifteen minutes before launch,
they had felt and heard the unearthly clanking noise of the access arm
moving away from the spacecraft,
then beheld the stunning blaze of
sunlight through the command module’s only uncovered porthole . As the
www.RocketSTEM .org