Apollo 17

Apollo 17 was the eleventh and final crewed mission of NASA's Apollo program, and remains, to date, the most recent time humans have walked on the Moon. Launched on 7 December 1972 — the only night launch of a Saturn V rocket — the mission carried Commander Eugene Cernan, Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans, and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt, a professional geologist and the first scientist to fly to the Moon.

Cernan and Schmitt landed the lunar module Challenger in the Taurus-Littrow valley on 11 December 1972, where they spent just over three days on the surface, conducting three moonwalks and driving the mission's Lunar Roving Vehicle a record distance while Evans orbited alone aboard the command module America. The crew returned to Earth with the largest haul of lunar samples of any Apollo mission, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean on 19 December 1972.