Timeline: Apollo 17

NASA announced that the backup crew of Apollo 14 would be Gene Cernan, Ronald Evans, and Joe Engle—putting them in line, via the Apollo crew-rotation system, to become the prime crew for Apollo 17.

After the planned launch of Apollo 18 was canceled, NASA faced pressure from the scientific community to fly a professional geologist on a lunar landing; this ultimately drove the decision to assign Harrison Schmitt to Apollo 17.

During training, Gene Cernan crashed a Bell 47G helicopter into Florida’s Indian River near Cape Kennedy; although later attributed to pilot error, the incident became a point of contention during crew-selection discussions.

NASA publicly announced the prime crew for Apollo 17: Commander Gene Cernan, Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans, and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt—making Schmitt the only professional geologist to land on the Moon.

Apollo 17’s geology field training program included a trip to Big Bend National Park; later training increasingly focused on terrain analogous to the eventual Taurus–Littrow landing site.

The Apollo Site Selection Board unanimously recommended Taurus–Littrow as Apollo 17’s landing site, prioritizing access to old highland material and evidence of volcanic processes with minimal overlap with prior mission ground tracks.

Major spacecraft components for Apollo 17 (CM-114, SM-114, and SLA-21) arrived at Kennedy Space Center, starting final integration and test flow for the flight hardware.

The Command Module and Service Module were mated, and formal spacecraft testing began, including vacuum-chamber testing that involved both prime and backup crews.

The Saturn V first stage (S-IC) arrived at Kennedy Space Center, completing a key milestone in assembling the SA-512 launch vehicle stack.

Erection of the Saturn V stages began and was completed in the Vehicle Assembly Building (High Bay 3), a period that also marked rare overlap with launch-vehicle processing for early Skylab missions.

The originally announced Apollo 17 backup crew (Apollo 15’s landing crew) was removed due to the Apollo 15 postal covers incident, and later replaced by Apollo 16’s landing crew members.

After completing major testing and modifications, the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) was loaded into the Lunar Module, finalizing a core capability for the mission’s three planned surface EVAs.

The integrated spacecraft stack was mounted on the Saturn V, preparing for rollout and final pad operations.

Apollo 17’s Saturn V rolled out to Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center for pad tests and countdown preparations—an event treated by many locals as the last Saturn V rollout.

The Command and Service Module was electrically mated to the launch vehicle, enabling full-system pad testing leading into launch month.

Apollo 17’s Saturn V (SA-512) awaited liftoff on the pad after final assembly and tests, including a simulated mission and countdown demonstrations.

The official launch countdown began, setting up the final crewed Saturn V flight and the last mission of NASA’s Apollo lunar-landing program.

Apollo 17 launched at night from Kennedy Space Center after a 2 hour 40 minute hardware-related hold; it became the final crewed Saturn V launch and began the last human journey to the Moon to date.

The Saturn V S-IVB third stage reignited for trans-lunar injection, sending the spacecraft toward the Moon; the Command/Service Module then docked with and extracted the Lunar Module from the S-IVB.

During the outbound coast, the crew performed midcourse corrections, checked Lunar Module systems, ran experiments (including the light-flash experiment), and photographed Earth—producing the famous image later known as The Blue Marble.

The Service Propulsion System fired to insert the spacecraft into lunar orbit; after stabilization, the crew began final preparations for the Taurus–Littrow landing.

The Lunar Module Challenger undocked, and Cernan and Schmitt conducted final checks while Evans remained in lunar orbit conducting observations and experiments.

Challenger landed in the Taurus–Littrow valley about 200 m east of the target point, enabling three days of surface exploration with expanded J-mission science objectives.

Cernan and Schmitt began Apollo 17’s first moonwalk, deployed the LRV and the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package, and visited Steno crater after drilling difficulties forced cancellation of a planned stop at Emory crater.

On the second moonwalk, the crew used an improvised fender repair and drove as far as Nansen crater—7.6 km from the LM, the greatest distance from a pressurized spacecraft during an EVA—before discovering orange volcanic glass at Shorty crater.

During the final Apollo moonwalk, Cernan and Schmitt explored the North Massif and Sculptured Hills, worked near split boulder Tracy's Rock, and collected major samples including the large rock 70215 and the scientifically important troctolite Sample 76535.

While the landing crew worked on the surface, Evans conducted extensive solo orbital operations in the CSM America, running SIM-bay instruments, photographing targets (including Earthlight-assisted images), and performing maneuvers such as a plane change to enable rendezvous.

Cernan and Schmitt lifted off from the Moon in the Lunar Module ascent stage and returned to lunar orbit, setting up rendezvous and docking with Evans in the Command/Service Module.

After docking, the crew transferred equipment and ~115 kg of lunar samples to the CSM; the LM ascent stage was later jettisoned and deliberately impacted the Moon for seismic measurements.

A trans-Earth injection burn sent Apollo 17 homeward; during the return coast, Evans performed a deep-space EVA to retrieve SIM-bay film canisters—one of only three such EVAs ever conducted.

Apollo 17 reentered Earth’s atmosphere and splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean near USS Ticonderoga (CV-14), ending the last Apollo mission and the most recent human visit to the Moon.

NASA deactivated the powered ALSEP experiments that had continued returning data from the Moon, largely due to budget constraints.

Ronald Evans, Apollo 17 command module pilot, died; he had previously retired from NASA in 1977 after leaving the U.S. Navy.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter began photographing the Apollo 17 landing site from orbit, supporting renewed interest in documenting remaining hardware on the surface.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured additional, lower-orbit images of the Apollo 17 site, clearly showing the Challenger descent stage and the parked LRV.

Gene Cernan, Apollo 17 commander and the last human to walk on the Moon, died after having retired from NASA and the U.S. Navy in 1976.

The German space company PTScientists stated it planned to land two lunar rovers near the Apollo 17 site, reflecting continued interest in visiting and imaging Apollo landing locations.

A vacuum-sealed Apollo 17 sample container prepared during EVA-2 was finally opened, decades after the mission, to allow analysis using modern techniques.

A study using Apollo-era data from the Lunar Seismic Profiling Experiment indicated the LM Challenger descent stage causes slight tremors each lunar morning as it thermally expands.