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 11 involved separating "Columbia" from the spent S-IVB stage, turning around, and docking with "Eagle" still attached to the stage. After the LM was extracted, the combined spacecraft headed for the Moon, while the rocket stage flew on a trajectory past the Moon. This was done to avoid colliding with the spacecraft, the Earth, or the Moon. A slingshot effect from passing around the Moon threw it into an orbit around the Sun. On July 19 at 17:21:50 UTC, Apollo 11 passed behind the Moon and fired its service propulsion engine to enter lunar orbit. In the thirty orbits that followed,