Apollo 17 Apollo 17 Apollo 17 was the final mission of NASA's Apollo program. Launched at 12:33 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) on December 7, 1972, with a crew made up of Commander Eugene Cernan, Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans, and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt, it was the last use of Apollo hardware for its original purpose; after Apollo 17, extra Apollo spacecraft were used in the Skylab and Apollo–Soyuz programs. Apollo 17 was the first night launch of a U.S. human spaceflight and the final manned launch of a Saturn V rocket. It was a "J-type mission" which included three
Fallen Astronaut upright. He also denies it was agreed he would remain anonymous. Both his and Scott's versions of events are given in an article in "Slate" magazine in 2013. During the Apollo 15 mission, near the completion of his work on the lunar surface on August 1, 1971, Scott secretly placed the "Fallen Astronaut" on the Moon, along with a plaque bearing the names of eight American astronauts and six Soviet cosmonauts who had died in service: Scott photographed the memorial, but waited for a post-mission press conference to publicly disclose its existence. Later, he noted that "Sadly, two names are