The mission never flew; a cabin fire during a launch rehearsal test at Cape Kennedy Air Force Station Launch Complex 34 on January 27 killed all three crew members—Command Pilot
The command module of Apollo 13 entered Earth's atmosphere and splashed down on target on April 17 at 1:07 PM Eastern Standard Time. The mission has been referred to as a successful failure, in that all the crew members survived a catastrophic accident.
Less than two years earlier, on Jan. 27, 1967, the three crew members of Apollo 1 — Virgil I. Grissom, Edward H. White II and Roger B. Chaffee — were killed in a fire on the launchpad during a preflight test at Cape Kennedy, Fla.
Walter Cunningham, the last surviving astronaut from the first successful crewed space mission in NASA's Apollo program, died Tuesday in Houston.
Four of America's moonwalkers are still alive: Aldrin (Apollo 11), David Scott (Apollo 15), Charles Duke (Apollo 16), and Harrison Schmitt (Apollo 17).
On July 20, Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the Moon, and four days later the three astronauts returned to Earth, fulfilling John F. Kennedy's challenge to Americans to land astronauts on the Moon and return them safely to Earth by the end of the 1960s.
This was also the first mission to reunite crewmates from a previous mission (Lovell and Borman, Gemini VII). As of September 2022, all three Apollo 8 astronauts remain alive.
With the world anxiously watching, Apollo 13, a U.S. lunar spacecraft that suffered a severe malfunction on its journey to the moon, safely returns to Earth on April 17, 1970.
Schirra really wasn't on us as bad as it seemed at the time. ... Bottom line was, even with a grumpy commander, we got the job done as a team." None of the Apollo 7 crew members flew in space again.
Apollo 12 survived a lightning strike during its launch on Nov. 14, 1969, and arrived at the Moon three days later. Astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean descended to the surface, while Richard Gordon remained in lunar orbit aboard the Command Module.
7, Apollo 15 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, about 335 miles north of Honolulu, ending a flight of 12 days, seven hours. The crew was picked up by helicopters from the prime recovery ship, the USS Okinawa, 6.32 miles from the targeted touchdown point.
The command module was dying, quickly. But the lunar lander, docked to the command module, was intact. Under the direction of Glynn Lunney, the flight director whose shift followed Mr. Kranz's, the Apollo 13 astronauts scrambled into the lunar module, which served as their lifeboat.
Burns suffered by the crew were not believed to be major factors, and it was concluded that most of them had occurred postmortem. Asphyxiation occurred after the fire melted the astronauts' suits and oxygen tubes, exposing them to the lethal atmosphere of the cabin.
Mattingly had been scheduled to fly on the Apollo 13 mission, but three days prior to launch, he was held back and replaced by Jack Swigert due to exposure to German measles (which Mattingly did not contract).
Apollo 15 was an October 1971 lunar mission by NASA to scout for a permanent Moon base and possibly find water ice in lunar craters. It consisted of mission commander Ed Baldwin, CSM pilot Frank Sedgewick, and new female astronaut and LEM pilot Molly Cobb, who became the first american woman on the Moon.
On Christmas morning, Apollo 8 left its lunar orbit and began its journey back to Earth, landing safely in the Pacific Ocean on December 27. On July 20 of the following year, Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission, became the first men to walk on the moon.
On April 28, 2021, Collins died of cancer at his home in Naples, Florida, at the age of 90. Buzz Aldrin, who became the last survivor of Apollo 11, said that "wherever [Collins has] been or will be, you will always have the Fire to Carry us deftly to new heights and the future."
Apollo 8 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at 10:51 a.m. EST Dec. 27. The splashdown was about 5,100 yards from the recovery ship USS Yorktown, 147 hours after launch and precisely on time.
Apollo 1 was expected to fly to Earth orbit later in 1967 with astronauts Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee and Ed White on board. During a test on the launch pad, however, a fire erupted and rapidly asphyxiated all three astronauts.
The Apollo 13 mission was to be the third lunar landing in the program before an on board explosion forced the mission to circle the Moon without landing.
Apollo 13 was NASA's third moon-landing mission, but the astronauts never made it to the lunar surface. During the mission's dramatic series of events, an oxygen tank explosion almost 56 hours into the flight forced the crew to abandon all thoughts of reaching the moon.
Apollo astronauts who walked on the Moon
All landed on the surface only once, and five missions consisted of two or more surface EVAs. Four of them are alive as of January 2023. Most astronauts at that time came from the military services and were considered to be on active duty during their NASA service.
3.5 Apollo 13
During the second period, the Commander, Command Module Pilot, and Lunar Module Pilot slept 5, 6, and 9 hours, respectively. The third sleep period was scheduled for 61 hours, but the orygen tank incident at 56 hours precluded sleep by any of the crew until approximately 80 hours.
At 9:00 p.m. EST on April 13, Apollo 13 was over 200,000 miles from Earth. The crew had just completed a television broadcast and was inspecting Aquarius, the Landing Module (LM). The next day, Apollo 13 was to enter the moon's orbit. Lovell and Haise were set to become the fifth and sixth men to walk on the moon.
Apollo 13 was to be the third lunar landing attempt, but the mission was aborted after rupture of service module oxygen tank.