Apollo 14 stage of lunar module "Antares" impacted the Moon on February 7, 1971 at 00:45:25.7 UT (February 6, 7:45 PM EST) . "Antares"' descent stage and the mission's other equipment remain at Fra Mauro at . Photographs taken in 2009 by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter were released on July 17, and the Fra Mauro equipment was the most visible Apollo hardware at that time, owing to particularly good lighting conditions. In 2011, the LRO returned to the landing site at a lower altitude to take higher resolution photographs. NASA reports Multimedia Apollo 14 Apollo 14 was the eighth manned mission in
Apollo 15 to Apollo 12, and since Apollo 11's backup crew had been designated for Apollo 13 (which did not land on the Moon), they were the first Apollo crew for a successful lunar landing mission to have backed up another such mission. Having had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the Apollo spacecraft, they could devote more of their training time as prime crew for Apollo 15 to geology and sampling techniques. The astronauts at NASA who were scientists, such as geologist Harrison Schmitt, pushed though the early Apollo missions for a greater place for science as part of the mission,