Apollo 12 demonstrated that the first landing was no fluke. Commanded by Charles "Pete" Conrad, with Command Module Pilot Richard F. Gordon and Lunar Module Pilot Alan L. Bean, the mission launched during a rainstorm — and 36.5 seconds after liftoff, the Saturn V was struck by lightning, twice. A quick-thinking call from Mission Control to Bean, who switched SCE to AUX, restoring telemetry and allowing the ascent to continue, saved the mission. Conrad and Bean landed the Lunar Module Intrepid in the Ocean of Storms on November 19, just 538 feet from the Surveyor 3 robotic probe that had landed there in April 1967 — a precision landing that proved the Apollo navigation system could target scientifically valuable but difficult terrain. The crew conducted two moonwalks totaling 7 hours and 27 minutes, deploying the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP), which continued to transmit data until 1977. On their second excursion, Conrad and Bean reached Surveyor 3, photographing and removing parts of the spacecraft to study the effects of 31 months in the lunar environment. The crew returned to Earth on November 24, splashing down less than four miles from the recovery ship USS Hornet.