This book, extensively illustrated with technical drawings and photographs, tracks the story of each of the successful post-Apollo 11 Moon-landing missions, majoring on the hardware and instruments developed, in addition to the engineering modifications made to the Lunar Module and the Apollo spacecraft for this greatly expanded scientific role.

1 Introduction 2 Prelude Building Apollo Recovery 3 Development flights C-1 Apollo 7 C’ Apollo 8 D-1 Apollo 9 F-1 Apollo 10 G-1 Apollo 11 4 The Operational Missions H-1 Apollo 12 H-3 Apollo 14 5 The J-Series Missions Command and Service Module Upgrade Extended Lunar Module Lunar Roving Vehicle J-1 Apollo 15 J-2 Apollo 16 J-3 Apollo 17 6 Going Back Rewind Renewal

When President Kennedy set the Moon as the goal for American astronauts in May 1961, he could not have envisaged the enormity of the project, which resulted in the successful first landing on the lunar surface in July 1969. But that was just the start of an exciting series of missions to our nearest celestial neighbour that would gather valuable information about the origin of the Moon and about the Earth–Moon system, leaving behind scientific experiments which continued to send back information for several years after the last Apollo astronauts returned to Earth. The story of Apollo has been told many times, but most accounts stop at the first landing. This book picks up where others have left off, and describes the five post-Apollo 11 Moon landings, defined as technical developments built upon engineering excellence. It was only through the robust design adopted when aerospace contractors first designed and built the Apollo spacecraft and the Lunar Module that successive evolutions were possible, taking lunar-landing operations far beyond what had first been envisaged. This book is not intended to tell the full story of each mission, but rather to describe the technical development of spacecraft and equipment necessary to grow the capability from a single EVA (‘moonwalk’) of less than three hours, to advanced missions where astronauts spent three full working days exploring their landing sites. With the aid of a Lunar Roving Vehicle, they collected a wide variety of rocks and soil, and left a range of instruments at the surface powered by a thermonuclear generator. As interest grows in humans returning to the Moon, 50 years on from those pioneering days of lunar exploration, we look again at what was accomplished at the dawn of the Space Age, spurred on by a political goal and developed as a tool for science. The Apollo era expressed the desire of humans to explore, to push through boundaries and to reach new goals. The story of the Apollo Moon missions is an expression of those achievements.

• Published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing. • Complementing Haynes Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Saturn V, Lunar Rover and Skylab Manuals, this book completes the technical description of the Apollo hardware. • The mission objectives and spacecraft capabilities, and the details of the much-modified spacecraft used for the J-series missions. • Details of the specific hardware and science experiments prepared for Apollo 15-17 – the final lunar-landing missions – along with details of the landing sites chosen.