There are so many remarkable formations present in this simple it's hard to choose exactly what to talk about. So instead of talking about them, let's address another aspect and talk about the Apollo 15 lunar mission that was of great importance for a better understanding of our satellite.

Mission Apollo 15

Landing site

The Apollo 15 landing site was located 26 ° 4 '54 "north latitude and 3 ° 39 '30" east longitude, at the foot of the Apennines. The Apennines rise to over 15,000 feet (4572 m) along the southeastern edge of Mare Imbrium (Sea of ​​Rains).

Apennines are the highest cliff on the moon, it is higher above the plains of the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada, California and ahead of the Himalayas rising above the plains of India and Nepal. The landing site had been selected to allow the astronauts used the car LM (Lunar Module) ahead of the Apennines during two of the EVAs.

Channel Hadley is a gorge V-shaped parallel to the Apennines along the eastern edge of Mare Imbrium. The rille winds down from an elongated depression in the mountains and around the Putredinis Palus (Marsh of Decay), merging with a second rille about 62 miles (100 kilometers) to the north. Hadley Rille measures about a kilometer and a half wide and about 1,300 feet (400 meters) deep for most of its length.

Overview

Apollo 15 was the first of three missions "J" designed to drive the operation of the Moon for longer periods, intervals larger and more scientific instruments for acquiring data from the previous Apollo missions. The most significant change was the installation of a scientific instrument module in one of the compartments of the service module for scientific research from the lunar orbit. Other hardware changes consisted of changes in the lunar module to accommodate a greater payload and a longer stay on the lunar surface, and providing a lunar vehicle.

Surface Operations

Because of the variety of surface features, landing site of the Hadley-Apennine allowed extensive geological exploration. During the nearly 67 hours on the Moon, the crew conducted a 33-minute extravehicular activity stand-up (EVA) on the top hatch of the lunar module as well as three EVAs totaling about 18.5 hours on the lunar surface.

Photographic mission

The photographic objectives of the Apollo 15 mission are designed to support a wide variety of scientific and operational experiments, ensuring high resolution panoramic photos and precisely oriented metrics photographs of the lunar surface, and to document operational tasks on the lunar surface and in flight. Detailed integrated pre-mission planning of photographic tasks with the other objectives of the mission to produce a balanced mission, which returned more data than any previous space travel. The return of photographic data was reinforced by new equipment, the high latitude of the landing site and more time in lunar orbit. New systems for cameras have been mounted in the scientific tool magazine modules (SIM) service module photographic provided a large capacity that was not available in any preceding mission. Additional cameras available for use within the Command Module (CM) and the lunar surface also increased the photographic potential of the Apollo 15 mission on previous manned flights.

Scientific experiments

In addition to his studies on the lunar surface, the crew of Apollo 15 conducted intensive studies of the Moon in lunar orbit. In addition to photography with hand held cameras in the command module, a series of experiments were carried out in the scientific instrument module on the Service Module. The same set of SIM bay instruments was also taken on Apollo 16.

In addition to geological surveys, the crew of Apollo 15 conducted several experiments on the lunar surface. The results of some of these experiences were sent by radio to Earth by the crew or taken to Earth for laboratory analysis.

The lunar samples

Apollo 15 landed on Mare Imbrium at the foot of the Apennine Mountains, which are part of the rim of the Imbrium impact basin. There were two main objectives of the geology for this site: Collect rocks of the mountains of the Apennines and study the Canal Hadley, a volcanic channel near the landing site. The Apollo 15 crew collected 370 rock samples and individual ground including a deep core drilling with material from 2.4 meters below the lunar surface, with a total mass of 77 kg.

Source: Lunar and Planetary Institute

           The Apollo Program - Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

Adaptation: Avani Soares