"Flown to the Moon!"—a lunar map plate carried on Apollo’s most scientific flight
Flown single-sided lunar map plate carried on the Apollo 15 mission, 10.5 x 7.75, signed "Flown to the Moon! Al Worden, Apollo 15 CMP."
The map identifies Le Monnier and its satellite craters, as well as the Littrow rilles, with "Fresh Ridge" and "Vance’s Ash" locations circled and indicated in felt tip.
Accompanied by a letter of provenance (below) signed by Worden, certifying that "this Lunar Map
was used during the historic flight of Apollo 15," and discussing the details and significance of the
mission at length: "Apollo 15 was the first mission to explore the mountains and rilles of the Moon.
Commander Dave Scott and Lunar Module Pilot James Irwin completed three moonwalks for a
combined duration of 18 hours and 33 minutes on the lunar surface…Our mission included the
introduction of a Lunar Roving Vehicle to traverse the Moon’s surface and a scientific instrument
bay in the Service Module to study the Moon from above. Our journey took 295.2 hours to
complete, during which time we traveled over 1.4 million miles. While my crew mates explored the
lunar surface, I remained in the Command Module and conducted scientific experiments and took
photographs using nearly a mile and a half of film. During the return trip to Earth, nearly 200,000
miles away from home, I performed a 38 minute spacewalk to recover film that had been exposed
during the flight. This was mankind’s first ever deep space EVA."
A new artifact in the Future Ventures 🚀 Space Collection.
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