Apollo 15 astronaut James Irwin, with the Lunar Rover, 1971.

Astronaut Irwin and the Lunar Rover on the Moon, with Mount Hadley in the background. Apollo 15, the fourth succesful lunar landing mision, was launched on 26th July 1971. It carried astronauts David Scott, Irwin and Alfred Worden. Worden remained in lunar orbit in the Apollo Command Module while the other two astronauts descended to the Moon, becoming the seventh and eighth men to walk on its surface. Apollo 15 was the first mision to use the battery powered Lunar Rover which, with a top speed of 14 kilometres per hour, considerably increased the distances that astronauts could cover while exploring the lunar surface.