Running repairs on the moon - archive, 13 December 1972

13 December 1972 Engineers at mission control in Houston work out a do-it-yourself repair routine for a broken mudguard on the Apollo 17 team's lunar rover

The Apollo 17 astronauts, Eugene Cernan and Jack Schmitt, carrying a makeshift replacement mudguard for their lunar rover, late last night (British time), returned to a dusty canyon hoping to find the oldest rocks man has ever seen amid the rubble of a nearby landslide. They were also looking for proof on their second moon walk that the floor of the canyon is blanketed by relatively young ash from one of the moon's dying volcanic upheavals.

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