Apollo 12, the Pinpoint Mission: Lightning at Launch and a Landing on Target

Apollo 12 lifted off from Cape Kennedy on November 14, 1969, into a cloudy, rainy sky, carrying commander Charles "Pete" Conrad, command module pilot Richard Gordon and lunar module pilot Alan Bean. This NASA film retells the mission, from a perilous launch to a pinpoint landing.

Struck by lightning

Seconds after liftoff, the Saturn V was struck by lightning twice, and launch controllers lost telemetry at 36 seconds and again at 52. In the cockpit, warning lights lit up across the panel — fuel cells, AC buses, main buses. "We had everything in the world drop out," Conrad reported.

Luckily, flight controller John Aaron had seen the same strange readings in a simulation. His fix was to reset an obscure system called the Signal Conditioning Equipment. "Apollo 12, Houston, try SCE to Auxiliary," came the call; the puzzled crew asked what that was, then made the switch, reset the fuel cells and brought their systems back.

A precision landing

Automatic guidance brought the lunar module to its target in the Ocean of Storms, where Conrad and Bean landed just 535 feet from the unmanned Surveyor 3 spacecraft. "Straight down the middle of the road," Conrad exclaimed. Stepping onto the Moon, he joked: "Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me."

Two days on the Moon

On two moonwalks over two days, Conrad and Bean:

• collected lunar samples;
• removed parts of Surveyor 3 so scientists could study the long-term effects of exposure on the Moon; and
• set up the first Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP), which studied moonquakes, ions, magnetic fields, the solar wind and lunar dust.

After the astronauts left the Moon, the lunar module's ascent stage was sent crashing into the surface, and NASA recorded seismic activity on the Moon for the first time. To seismologists' surprise, some of the signals lasted an hour. On the way home, the crew watched a spectacular eclipse.

Legacy

Apollo 12 splashed down on November 24, 1969. The ALSEP, designed to last one year, kept sending data for eight years, and the samples the crew brought back are still studied today.

Sources

• NASA, "Apollo 12 – The Pinpoint Mission," NASA Image and Video Library (NHQ_2019_1114): https://images.nasa.gov/details/NHQ_2019_1114_Apollo%2012%20-%20The%20Pinpoint%20Mission