Apollo 17 (December 7 – 19, 1972) was the final Moon landing mission of NASA's Apollo program, and remains the most recent time humans have traveled beyond low Earth orbit and also the most recent time humans have set foot on the Moon. Its crew consisted of Commander Eugene Cernan, Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt, and Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans, and it carried a biological experiment containing five mice.

Launched at 12:33 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) on December 7, 1972, Apollo 17 was a "J-type" mission that included three days on the lunar surface, extended scientific capability, and the use of the third Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV).

Cernan and Schmitt landed in the Taurus–Littrow valley and completed three moonwalks, taking lunar samples and deploying scientific instruments. The landing site had been chosen to further the mission's main goals: to sample lunar highland material older than Mare Imbrium, and to investigate the possibility of relatively recent volcanic activity. Evans remained in lunar orbit in the command and service module (CSM), taking scientific measurements and photographs.

Cernan, Evans, Schmitt, and the mice returned to Earth on December 19.

Apollo 17 was the first mission to have no one on board who had been a test pilot; X-15 test pilot Joe Engle lost the lunar module pilot assignment to Schmitt, a geologist. The mission included the first night launch of a U.S. crewed spacecraft and the final crewed launch of a Saturn V rocket. It was also the final use of Apollo hardware for its original purpose (extra Apollo spacecraft were later used in the Skylab and Apollo–Soyuz programs).

The mission broke several crewed spaceflight records, including the longest Moon landing, greatest distance from a spacecraft during an EVA of any type (7.6 kilometers, a record which still stands), longest total lunar surface extravehicular activities (22 hours 4 minutes), largest lunar sample return (110.52 kilograms or 243.7 lb), longest time in lunar orbit (6 days 4 hours) and most lunar orbits (75).

Lunar Roving Vehicle
Apollo 17 Lunar Roving Vehicle as it was finally left parked on the Moon. The surface electrical properties (SEP) receiver is the antenna on the right-rear of the vehicle.

Apollo 17 was the third mission (the others being Apollo 15 and Apollo 16) to make use of a Lunar Roving Vehicle. The LRV, in addition to being used by the astronauts for transport from station to station on the mission's three moonwalks, was used to transport the astronauts' tools, communications equipment, and samples.The Apollo 17 LRV was also used to carry experiments unique to the mission, such as the Traverse Gravimeter and Surface Electrical Properties experiment. The Apollo 17 LRV traveled a cumulative distance of approximately 35.9 km (22.3 mi) in a total drive time of about four hours and twenty-six minutes; the greatest distance Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt traveled from the lunar module was about 7.6 km (4.7 mi).