Featured Image - 01/15/2008
Apollo 15: Barnstorming the Moon

This birds-eye view of the lunar surface shows what future lunar explorers will see when humans return to the Moon. The stark beauty of the lunar frontier is evident in these views of the lunar surface captured by Apollo 15 command module pilot Al Worden as he orbited the Moon in the command/service module Endeavour at a height of just 60 km (37.5 miles). As Al minded the Endeavour in lunar orbit and performed his own campaign of scientific observations, down on the lunar surface Dave Scott and Jim Irwin explored the Hadley Rille region with the first lunar rover.

Early in the sequence you can just see the north edge of Mare Tsiolkovskiy slide by the bottom edge. If you look closely, the Apollo 15 landing area is visible near the end of the movie as the Endeavour passes over the Apennine mountains.

Images in this sequence are from Orbit 16 (frames AS15-M-0280 to AS15-M-0425 ). The sequence runs east-to-west from the dusk terminator (25.1° S, 167.8° E) to the dawn terminator (25.2° N, 348.9° E). As you pass from dusk to noon to dawn, the direction of shadows cast by the rugged landscape completely reverses.

MPEG1 formatted movie, 252x252 resolution, 2.4MB
(Thumbnail Apollo Image AS15-M-0280 [NASA/JSC/Arizona State University])

A high resolution Apple QuickTime (506x506, 162MB) formatted movie is also available for viewing and download.

In the figure below, the orbit 16 ground track is highlighted.

(Mission 15 Lunar Photography Index Map, Sheet 5 of 10, Mapping Camera Photographs [NASA/MSC/LPI])

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