Apollo 14 Site

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Apollo 14 Site

(unofficial name)

Lat: 3.64530°S, Long: 17.47136°W, Rukl: 42

external image FraMauro050218.jpg
Peter Lloyd (Annotated version)

Images

LPOD Photo Gallery images Lunar Orbiter Images Apollo Images
Mike Constantine's assembled panorama of Apollo 14's landingsite, looking east. The low hills behind LM Antares are the slopes of Cone crater. Those near the panorama's right margin are the slopes of Old Nameless. The bright spot on top of the LM's Ascent Stage is not a reflection of the sun, as mentioned above Mike's panorama, it is the partially obscured sun itself! - DannyCaes Feb 6, 2008

A possible discovery? (specular reflection on a lunar rock?).
Surface Hasselblads AS14-66-9281, 9282, and 9283 were made in eastern direction, toward the slopes of the distant Cone crater. These three images show lots of shadowed dimple craterlets (upsun photographs). In each one of these three images, a curious bright dot is visible below and to the left of the sun's position (the dot is located on the lunar surface). Could it be that this bright dot is some sort of solar reflection at a rock's mirror-like flat surface? Was this bright dot noticed before?
The High-Resolution scans of these three upsun Hasselblads:
AS14-66-9281
AS14-66-9282
AS14-66-9283
- DannyCaes Feb 4, 2008

Appearance of planet Venus on Apollo 14's surface photographs (Danny Ross Lunsford and Eric M. Jones, Apollo Lunar Surface Journal).

Maps

(LAC zone 76B1) LAC map Geologic map LM map AIC map Landing site map
USGS Geologic Map of Part of the Fra Mauro Region (I-708 1) (Apollo 14 Pre Mission Map, the Cone crater area).
USGS Geologic Map of the Fra Mauro Region (I-708 2) (Apollo 14 Pre Mission Map, north of Fra Mauro).

Description

Apollo 14 landed in a hilly area just north of the crater Fra Mauro.

Description: Wikipedia

Apollo 14

Additional Information

  • The position of the Apollo 14 landing site given in the title line is from Davies and Colvin, 2000. It is based on the position of the Apollo 14 lunar surface experiment package (ALSEP) radio transmitter, as later determined by Earth-based radio interferometry, and the assumption that the lander touched down 185 m east and 40 m south of that location. The measured ALSEP location is itself probably uncertain by at least 30 m. The earlier DMA-prepared Landing site map gave the approximate landing site position as 3.675S, 17.467W.
  • On thursday the 4th of February 2016, LMP Edgar D. Mitchell died in Florida, age 85. Mitchell's death marks APOLLO 14 as the first one of the Apollo project's nine moonmissions of which no one of the crew is still alive. CDR Alan Shepard died in 1998, CMP Stuart Roosa died in 1994. - DannyCaes Feb 7, 2016


Nomenclature

The IAU Nomenclature includes 6 minor astronaut-named landing site feature names associated with Apollo 14 (copied from IAU Transactions XVIB):
  1. Cone: A 350 m crater situated on the western edge of one of the high ridges of the Fra Mauro Formation. The physical location and ejecta, of the crater give it a cone-shaped appearance. The south rim of the crater was the farthest stop of the second EVA surface sampling traverse.
  2. Triplet: Three craters in a row, "North", "Center", and "South", that served as the first major landmark for landing the craft. The Apollo 14 LM landed west of North Triplet. Samples were also collected from North Triplet.
  3. Doublet: Two superposed craters west of the landing point that served as the second major landmark for landing the craft. The Laser Ranging Retro Reflector was deployed on the southeast rim of Doublet crater.
  4. Flank: A 30 m crater on the southwestern flank of Cone crater.
  5. Old Nameless: Crater with broken rim.
  6. Weird: A 40 m unusual cluster of probably two or possibly three craters forming a unique or "weird" shape. A large rock sampled east of this crater had already been named Weird rock!


The landing site itself has no official name. - JimMosher

The USGS's Geologic Map of Part of the Fra Mauro Region (I-708 1) (Apollo 14 Pre Mission Map), shows 5 unofficial names slightly west of Cone crater. These names are: Cloverleaf, Old Deep, Old North, Star, Sunrise. And then there's also Crossroads and Neighbor (see lower part of ALSJ page Old Nameless).

LPOD Articles

Making Trails (the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's spectacular High-Resolution close-up image of Apollo 14's landing site and nearby ALSEP-station, and the astronaut/ MET tracks in between them!).

LROC Articles

Precise 3D Measurements of Objects at Apollo 14 Landing Site from LROC NAC Stereo Images
Trail of Discovery at Fra Mauro
New View of Apollo 14

Bibliography