Apollo (spacecraft) Surface Experiment Packages ALSEP, the modularized equipment transporter (MET) (a hand-pulled equipment cart used on Apollo 14), the Lunar Rover (Apollo 15, 16 and 17), a surface television camera, surface tools, and lunar sample collection boxes. The ascent stage contained the crew cabin, instrument panels, overhead hatch/docking port, forward hatch, optical and electronic guidance systems, reaction control system, radar and communications antennas, ascent rocket engine and propellant to return to lunar orbit and rendezvous with the Apollo Command and Service Modules. The spacecraft–LM adapter (SLA), built by North American Aviation (Rockwell), was a conical aluminum structure which supported the service
Apollo 16 was retrieved by the . They were safely aboard the "Ticonderoga" 37 minutes after splashdown. The Apollo 16 subsatellite (PFS-2) was a small satellite released into lunar orbit from the Service Module. Its principal objective was to measure charged particles and magnetic fields all around the Moon as the Moon orbited Earth, similar to its sister spacecraft, PFS-1, released eight months earlier by Apollo 15. "The low orbits of both subsatellites were to be similar ellipses, ranging from above the lunar surface." "Instead, something bizarre happened. The orbit of PFS-2 rapidly changed shape and distance from the Moon. In 2-1/2