WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

Searchlights illuminate this nighttime scene at Pad A, Launch Complex 39, Kennedy Space Center, Florida, showing the Apollo 17 (Spacecraft 114/Lunar Module 12/Saturn 512) space vehicle during prelaunch preparations. Apollo 17, the final lunar landing mission in NASA's Apollo program, will be the first nighttime liftoff of the huge Saturn V launch vehicle. Apollo 17 is scheduled for launching on the night of Dec. 6, 1972. Aboard the Apollo 17 spacecraft will be astronaut Eugene A. Cernan, commander; astronaut Ronald E. Evans, command module pilot; and scientist-astronaut Harrison H. Schmitt, lunar module pilot. Note the full moon in the background.