Fra Mauro 1984 and now in a private collection, probably in France. The crater Fra Mauro and associated Fra Mauro formation of the Moon are named after him. The Apollo 13 lunar mission was intended to explore the Fra Mauro formation, but – due to the explosion aboard the spacecraft – Apollo 13's crew had to return to Earth without landing on the Moon. The formation was instead explored by astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell of the Apollo 14 mission in February 1971. Fra Mauro Fra Mauro, O.S.B. Cam., (died 1464) was an Italian cartographer who lived in the Republic of
Moon landing instrumental in allowing the key 1965 NASA budget appropriation to pass through the United States Congress intact without a reduction in funds for the Apollo manned Moon landing program. Subsequent successes with Ranger 8 and Ranger 9 further buoyed U.S. hopes. The Luna 9 spacecraft, launched by the Soviet Union, performed the first successful soft Moon landing on 3 February, 1966. Airbags protected its ejectable capsule which survived an impact speed of over . Luna 13 duplicated this feat with a similar Moon landing on 24 December 1966. Both returned panoramic photographs that were the first views from the lunar