Apollo 12 launched from Cape Kennedy on Nov. 14, 1969, into a cloudy, rain-swept sky. Launch controllers lost telemetry contact at 36 seconds, and again at 52 seconds, when the Saturn V launch vehicle was struck by lightning.
In addition to continuing Apollo's lunar exploration tasks, Charles Conrad, Alan Bean, and Richard Gordon deployed the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package, a set of investigations left on the Moon's surface to gather data.
