Mission timeline
Mission timeline
[edit] Return to Earth
| Monday December 18 | Onboard press conference | |
| Tuesday December 19 | Landing, aboard the aircraft carrier only overnight. | |
| Wednesday December 20 | Visited Pago Pago, American Samoa. Then 13 1/2-hour trip aboard an Air Force plane to Ellington Air Force Base near Houston. | |
| Thursday December 21 | Cernan, Schmitt and Evans returned home Thursday and, after a brief reunion with their families, underwent medical tests and then started their technical reports. | |
| Friday December 22 | 1st photo release :       
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| Saturday December 23 | 2nd photo release:        
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| Sunday December 24 | ||
| Monday December 25 | Pause to spend Christmas with their families. The debriefings will not resume until after New Year's Day, giving the last of Apollo lunar pilots the first long break in their grueling training and flight routine in months. | |
| Tuesday December 26 | ||
| Wednesday December 27 | The bag containing the orange soil was among the samples contained in a large stainless steel box opened Wednesday. The first scientist to land on the moon studied the most fantastic collection of rocks gathered by Apollo astronauts Wednesday and said the orange soil did not look as bright as it did when he kicked it around on the moon. | |
| Thursday December 28 | ||
| Friday December 29 | ||
| Saturday December 30 | Dr, Luis Rancitelli of Battelle Laboratories in Richland, Wash., said Saturday that a large chip from a moon boulder "contains active evidence" of a solar flare-up last summer. | |
| Sunday December 31 | ||
| Monday January 1 | ||
| January 2 | Tuesday | |
| Wednesday January 3 | ||
| Thursday January 4 | An intestinal infection which this week struck astronaut Eugene Cernan, commander of the Apollo 17 moon landing flight, has postponed today's scheduled post-flight news conference until Friday. | |
| Friday January 5 | Press conference | |
| Saturday January 6 | ||
| Sunday January 7 |