Apollo Program · Fourth crewed lunar landing — first J-mission
Apollo 15
- Launch
- 1971-07-26 13:34 UTC
- Return
- 1971-08-07 20:46 UTC
- Duration
- 12 days 07 hours 12 minutes
Mission summary
Apollo 15 was the first 'J-mission' — an extended-stay lunar landing with the Lunar Roving Vehicle, an upgraded LM with longer surface duration, and a Service Module Scientific Instrument Bay carrying mapping cameras and a sub-satellite. Dave Scott and Jim Irwin landed at Hadley-Apennine between a 4-kilometer-tall mountain range and a deep rille, conducted three EVAs totaling 18.5 hours, and collected the 4.1-billion-year-old Genesis Rock. Scott's hammer-and-feather drop on live television confirmed Galileo's prediction directly. Al Worden's 38-minute deep-space EVA on the way home was the first ever conducted outside Earth's gravitational sphere.
Crew
| Astronaut | Prior missions | Subsequent missions |
|---|---|---|
|
David R. Scott Commander |
Gemini 8, Apollo 9 | None — final flight |
|
Alfred M. Worden Command Module Pilot |
None (first flight) | None |
|
James B. Irwin Lunar Module Pilot |
None (first flight) | None |
Launch vehicle
Saturn V SA-510
Lunar landing
Open on the surface map →- Site
- Hadley-Apennine
- Coordinates
- 26.1322° lat, 3.6339° lon
- Touchdown
- 1971-07-30 22:16 UTC
- EVAs
- 3 · total 18:34:46
Objectives
- First J-mission — extended surface stay (~67 hours) and three EVAs totaling ~18.5 hours.
- First use of the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV).
- First subsatellite released into lunar orbit (PFS-1) for magnetic-field studies.
- Worden's solo trans-Earth coast EVA — first 'deep-space' spacewalk.
Milestones
| When | Event |
|---|---|
| 1971-07-26 13:34 UTC |
Launched from LC-39A.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/apollo15.html |
| 1971-07-30 22:16 UTC | Scott and Irwin landed LM 'Falcon' between the Apennine mountains and Hadley Rille — first landing at a non-mare site. |
| 1971-07-31 to 1971-08-02 | Three EVAs totaling 18 hours 34 minutes — far longer than any prior mission. First LRV deployment; longest geological traverse to date (~28 km cumulative). |
| 1971-07-31 | Genesis Rock collected — a 4.1-billion-year-old anorthosite that became one of the program's most important samples. |
| 1971-08-02 | On live TV, Scott dropped a hammer and a feather simultaneously to confirm Galileo's prediction that gravity accelerates objects equally in vacuum. |
| 1971-08-04 | Subsatellite PFS-1 released into lunar orbit. |
| 1971-08-05 | Worden conducted a 38-minute trans-Earth coast EVA to retrieve film cassettes from the SIM bay — first deep-space EVA. |
| 1971-08-07 20:46 UTC | Splashed down in the Pacific despite one of three main parachutes failing to fully open; recovered by USS Okinawa. |
Primary sources
Last updated 2026-05-09 15:17 UTC.