Mission Summary
Apollo 12 was the second mission to land astronauts on the Moon and demonstrated that NASA could repeatedly and accurately carry out lunar landings. Launched on November 14, 1969, the mission overcame a dramatic lightning strike shortly after liftoff before continuing safely to the Moon. Four days later, astronauts Charles “Pete” Conrad and Alan Bean landed the Lunar Module Intrepid in the Ocean of Storms, while Richard Gordon remained in lunar orbit aboard the Command Module Yankee Clipper.
Apollo 12 made the first precision landing on the Moon, touching down within walking distance of the unmanned Surveyor 3 spacecraft, which had landed there more than two years earlier. Conrad and Bean spent over 31 hours on the lunar surface, conducting scientific experiments, collecting nearly 34 kilograms (75 pounds) of lunar rocks and soil, and retrieving parts of Surveyor 3 so engineers could study how equipment had withstood years in the lunar environment.
Apollo 12 transformed lunar exploration from proving it could be done into demonstrating it could be done with precision and confidence. The mission expanded scientific research on the Moon and established techniques that would be used on the increasingly ambitious Apollo missions that followed.
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