[Apollo 14]

From the Personal Collection of Apollo 14 CMP Stuart Roosa.

FLOWN TO THE LUNAR SURFACE ON THE LUNAR MODULE ANTARES

The third lunar landing mission, the Apollo 14 Lunar Module Antares touched down on the lunar surface on February 5, 1971. Commander Alan Shepard and Lunar Module Pilot Edgar Mitchell landed in the rugged Fra Mauro highlands, the site that the Apollo 13 crew had planned to visit before near disaster diverted that mission.

Dedicated to lunar science, Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell's mission objectives included gathering geological samples such as a specimen later dubbed "Big Bertha," the almost 20lb sample determined to be a four billion year old terrestrial meteorite. Apollo 14 also included the longest moonwalk in history. This took place on Shepard and Mitchell's attempt to reach the rim of Cone Crater.

Cone Crater is a geological formation created by an asteroid impact encompassing the 1100 kilometer Imbrium basin, the second largest impact basin on the Moon. Due to inconsistencies in their maps and the visual terrain before them, they stopped only 135 feet away from the crater's rim when they decided to turn back. Despite not reaching the rim, they still successfully completed their mission and collected samples that helped determine the date of the Imbrium impact at approximately 3.93 billion years ago.

While Shepard and Mitchell were navigating the lunar surface, Command Module Pilot Stuart Roosa was in lunar orbit in the command module Kitty Hawk making the first intensive scientific observations of the Moon from lunar orbit. This lunar surface flown identification plate is from Roosa's collection, making th