page_title: Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility
section_title: Samples stored at facility and other lunar samples
hierarchical_section_title: Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility / Samples stored at facility and other lunar samples
context_page_description: The Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility is a repository and laboratory facility at NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, opened in 1979 to house geologic samples returned from the Moon by the Apollo program missions to the lunar surface between 1969 and 1972. The facility preserves most of the 382 kilograms of lunar material returned over the course of Apollo program and other extraterrestrial samples, along with associated data records. It also contains laboratories for processing and studying the samples without contamination.
context_section_description: The facility is the chief repository of the samples returned by the Apollo program.  The Apollo missions to the lunar surface (Apollo 11, Apollo 12, Apollo 14, Apollo 15, Apollo 16, and Apollo 17) returned a total of 382 kilograms (842 pounds) of lunar rocks, core samples, pebbles, sand and lunar surface dust, comprising 2200 individual specimens.  Seventy-five percent of the lunar materials returned by Apollo are housed at the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility, most in pristine condition.  Some of the materials have been processed into smaller samples to meet scientific requirements, resulting in more than 110,000 individually cataloged samples.
  Perhaps the most notable of the samples stored at the facility is the Genesis Rock, a sample ultimately determined to be nearly as old as the Moon itself. Also at the facility is the sample known as Big Muley, the largest sample returned from the Moon by Apollo.
  In addition to the Apollo materials, the Johnson Space Center also houses other extraterrestrial samples:
  Antarctic meteorites collected on ANSMET (ANtarctic Search for METeorites) expeditions funded by the National Science Foundation
  Cosmic dust collected by NASA aircraft
  Solar wind atoms collected by the Genesis spacecraft
  Comet particles collected by the Stardust spacecraft
  Interstellar dust particles collected by the Stardust spacecraft
  52 kilograms (115 lb) of the 382 kilograms (842 lb) of lunar samples returned by the Apollo program are stored at the White Sands Test Facility.  Other small samples have been distributed to foreign heads of state, U.S. states, museums, and other institutions.  NASA has also made a number of educational packs available for exhibition and educational purposes, each consisting of a disc of six small rock and soil samples in a lucite disc and a pack of thin petrological sections.
  In addition to the lunar samples returned by the Apollo missions, an additional 300 grams (11 oz) of lunar samples were returned to Earth by three automated Soviet spacecraft, Luna 16, Luna 20, and Luna 24.
caption: The Genesis Rock
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