Gene Cernan's Handwritten Lunar Rover Repair Notes Sold for $510,000

A wrist-mounted checklist containing Gene Cernan’s handwritten instructions for repairing a damaged lunar rover fender has sold for $510,000 in RR Auction’s latest Space Exploration auction.

Cernan wore the checklist on his left wrist during Apollo 17’s second moonwalk on December 12, 1972. During the mission’s first moonwalk his spacesuit caught and tore away the lunar rover’s right rear fender. Without it, the rover’s wheels threw lunar dust onto the astronauts, their equipment and cameras.

Mission Control developed a repair using spare lunar rover maps, lunar module brackets and gray tape. Cernan recorded the radioed instructions on a blank page at the back of his checklist. He and fellow astronaut Harrison Schmitt made the replacement fender before beginning their second moonwalk.

The second moonwalk lasted seven hours, 37 minutes and 22 seconds, the longest single moonwalk of the Apollo program. Cernan and Schmitt traveled approximately 19.5km by lunar rover through the Taurus-Littrow Valley. At Shorty Crater, Schmitt discovered orange-colored lunar soil.

“Without that fender, the lunar rover could have been put out of commission, and the whole Apollo 17 mission was in jeopardy," said Bobby Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction. "When Gene Cernan went out on the surface to fix it, the instructions were scribbled right on his cuff checklist. Those handwritten notes saved the rover.”

The spiral-bound checklist contains 25 double-sided leaves with lunar traverse maps, geological station procedures and equipment instructions. Its original aluminium wrist brace and black Velcro wristband remain attached. Several pages bear gray smudges consistent with lunar dust from the checklist’s use on the moon.