Exploring the Moon astronaut Duke stands next to Crater Plum during the first excursion of the Apollo mission Duke is seen holding a bore sampling implement used to take vertical profile samples of the lunar soil On the far side of the metre wide crater is the Lunar Roving Vehicle LRV Astronauts Duke and Young landed in the Descartes region of the Moon on April During their hour visit they made three excursions on the surface totalling hours minutes covering kilometres in the LRV After blasting off from the Moon they rejoined astronaut Mattingly in the Command and Service Module returning to Earth on April