Lunar Flag Assembly flag, placed about from the centerline of the "Eagle" landing craft, was blown over by the blast of the rocket exhaust during takeoff. Because of this, care was taken by subsequent crews to place the flags at greater distances from the Lunar Module. The landing on Apollo 13 was aborted due to a major spacecraft malfunction encountered before reaching the Moon. The flag carried on that flight was destroyed with the Lunar Module "Aquarius" when it reentered the Earth's atmosphere. A review of photographs taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) indicates that flags placed during the Apollo 12, Apollo
Apollo Docking Mechanism Apollo Docking Mechanism The docking system of the Apollo modules was a "probe and drogue" system. The system allowed the Apollo Command/Service Module to dock with the Apollo Lunar Module, and later allowed the ASTP CSM to dock with the Docking Module (an adapter which allowed to dock with the Soyuz 19 spacecraft) and Skylab 2, Skylab 3 and Skylab 4 CSMs to dock with Skylab. There were 12 hard latches. The Apollo system differed from the Gemini Docking Mechanism in that after locking, the probe and cone mechanism could be manually removed to allow access between the two docked