Apollo 17
Apollo 17 splashes down, ending the final Apollo lunar mission
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗America hit the Pacific 648 kilometers southeast of American Samoa. Fifty-two minutes later all three astronauts were aboard USS Ticonderoga.
19:24:59 GMT, 19 December 1972
On 19 December 1972, the command module America, carrying Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans and Harrison Schmitt, jettisoned its service module, reentered normally and splashed down in the Pacific at 19:24:59 GMT — 2:24:59 p.m. EST.
The mission had run 301 hours, 51 minutes and 59 seconds. The splashdown point lay 648 kilometers southeast of American Samoa.
Recovery
Teams from USS Ticonderoga tracked the capsule and retrieved the astronauts by helicopter. The crew was aboard the ship 52 minutes after splashdown.
Recovery swimmers had reached the capsule, installed a flotation collar and passed life preservers through the hatch before the crew entered a raft.
The command module was recovered for postflight inspection, with the mission's samples, film and scientific data back on Earth.
What came home
The last Apollo moonwalk had ended five days earlier, on 14 December. What 19 December delivered was 110.4 kilograms — 243 pounds — of lunar material.
NASA's Apollo program director reported that the mission had been completed successfully and that all assigned primary objectives had been achieved.
Sources
Researched 23 Aug 2026 7 sources 2 audit passes
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