Launch of Apollo 16

Apollo 16 was the tenth crewed Apollo flight and the fifth to land on the Moon, carrying John Young, Charles Duke and Ken Mattingly from the Kennedy Space Center. Young and Duke landed in the Descartes Highlands, the only Apollo landing in the rugged lunar highlands, while Mattingly stayed in orbit aboard the command module. They drove the lunar roving vehicle on three long excursions and collected a large set of rock samples. Scientists had expected volcanic rock at the site, but the samples proved to be mostly impact breccias, which changed ideas about how the highlands formed. The crew returned safely to Earth a few days later.

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