Journey of Apollo 15 to the Moon

Launched at 9:34:00 am EST on July 26, 1971, Apollo 15 took four days to reach the Moon. After spending two hours in orbit around the Earth, the S-IVB third stage of the Saturn V was reignited to send them to the Moon.

During the retrieval of the Apollo Lunar Module (LM) from its stowed position below the command and service module (CSM), a light came on on the control panel that indicated the valves of the service propulsion system were open and the engine should be firing. A short was found in a switch that controlled the redundant valves for the engine. New procedures were developed to deal with this. During their first inspection of the LM, Scott and Irwin found that the glass cover of a tapemeter had broken forcing them to clean up the glass shards lest they breathe them in.

On the fourth day they entered into lunar orbit and prepared for lunar descent.