Picture of Apollo 12 lunar module
Apollo 12 was launched on Nov. 14, 1969 and arrived at the Moon three days later. Astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean descended to its surface, while Richard Gordon remained in lunar orbit aboard the Command Module.
Computers guided the Lunar Module to a landing site close to that of the Surveyor 3 probe which had landed on the Moon two years earlier. The astronauts spent more than a day on the lunar surface, during which they visited the Surveyor spacecraft, taking some of its parts back to Earth for further study. They also conducted several experiments on the Moon's environment and collected rock and soil samples.
The Apollo 12 mission was a complete success but, due to a broken television camera, its progress was not seen by audiences back on Earth.
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