The landing site for Apollo 12 was within walking distance of the unmanned spacecraft Surveyor 3 which landed on the moon in April 1967. To prevent the trajectory problems Apollo 11 had, Mission Control used a new technique to determine exactly where the Apollo 12 Lunar Module was before it descended to the moon. By using radar and doppler signals from Earth to pinpoint their position, an update to the crew was sent minutes before they started their descent. This number was entered manually into the computer by Bean.

The result is when the crew got their first look at the landing site, they immediately recognized the crater pattern and Conrad was able to steer the Lunar Module to a safe landing exactly where they wanted to land, 535 feet from the Surveyor.