December 19: The Apollo 17 mission successfully returns to Earth. It was the last manned mission to the Moon and who returned safely home in 1972.

The prime crew for the Apollo 17 lunar landing mission are: Commander, Eugene A. Cernan (seated), Command Module pilot Ronald E. Evans (standing on right), and Lunar Module pilot, Harrison H. Schmitt. They are photographed with a Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) trainer.

The Apollo 17 mission was sent into space on December 7, 1972 by a NASA´s Saturn V rocket from the platform 39A of the complex Cape Kennedy in Florida, USA.

Apollo 17 launches on December 7, 1972.

The crew of Apollo 17 consisted of the commander and veteran of the mission Gemini 9 and Apollo 10 Eugene A. Cernan, the lunar module pilot and geologist Harrison H. Schmitt called Jack, and command module pilot Ronald E. Evans.

Apollo 17 photo of the Earth as the spacecraft heads for the Moon (known as "The Blue Marble photo").

The commander Gene Cernan was the last man to walk on the surface of the Moon in the Taurus-Littrow valley.

Apollo 17 mission, 11 December 1972. Astronaut Eugene A. Cernan, commander, makes a short checkout of the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) during the early part of the first Apollo 17 Extravehicular Activity (EVA-1) at the Taurus-Littrow landing site.

During the stay in lunar soil in which they collected 110 kg of lunar rock samples and left installed a ALSEP with the following instruments: A gravimeter surface to analyze the attraction that the Sun and the Earth have on our satellite; a measuring apparatus mass, speed and frequency of meteorite fall, and erosion of material ejected by the impact; an apparatus for determining the seismic profile based explosive charges; and a meter of lunar atmospheric composition near the surface.