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Because they were a little shallow on their re-entry angle, so took a longer flight path into the atmosphere.
For the Apollo 13 mission, the blackout was much longer than normal because the flight path of the spacecraft was unexpectedly at a much shallower angle than normal.
Ionization of the air around the command module during reentry would typically cause a four-minute communications blackout. Apollo 13's shallow reentry path lengthened this to six minutes, longer than had been expected; controllers feared that the CM's heat shield had failed.
Apollo 13 presently 4,075 nautical miles out from Earth. Velocity now showing 24,619 feet per second. We're less than 27 minutes now from time of entry into the Earth's atmosphere. With less than half an hour to go, they are now at 7,547 km away and speeding in at 7,504 m/s.
The lack of gravity astronauts encounter during spaceflight makes returning to the force of Earth's gravity a little disorienting. And when they return to Earth, they faint. A new study published Friday in Circulation, the American Heart Association's journal, has identified a way to avoid that.
With the electrical systems turned off, the temperature approached about 34 degrees Fahrenheit prior to entering the atmosphere.
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.
From the Apollo 13 Mission Report ( 8 Mb ), "The crew reported sleeping well the first 2 days of the mission. They all slept about 5-1/2 hours during the first sleep period. During the second period, the Commander, Command Module Pilot, and Lunar Module Pilot slept 5, 6, and 9 hours, respectively.
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.
When a spacecraft travels through the atmosphere at speeds much faster than the speed of sound – say, during reentry – the friction between its surface and the surrounding air forms a plasma sheath, leading to a communication blackout lasting up to 10 minutes.
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.
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.
An curved arrow pointing right. There was no bathroom on the Apollo missions. Instead, NASA astronauts peed into a roll-on cuff, and pooped in bags that they kneaded, rolled up tight, and took back to Earth.
Their menu, however, was limited to rather unpalatable gelatin-coated food cubes, freeze-dried items, and paste squeezed from tubes. By Gemini, scientists had improved space food substantially in taste and texture, but it was still freeze-dried or dehydrated, there wasn't great diversity in options.
As the Apollo 13 crew re-entered the Earth's atmosphere there was a blackout period where they couldn't communicate with mission control. The blackout period was supposed to last three minutes, but it lasted 90 seconds longer, leaving those at mission control unaware if the crew were going to make it home safely.
"They would have missed the Earth and died a lonely death in space when their oxygen ran out," Chaikin said in the narration, with initial editions including the erroneous information. "Even more chilling," he added, "their bodies would never have returned, because Apollo 13 would have circled in space forever.
Twelve men walked on the Moon during six Moon landings of the Apollo program between July 1969 and December 1972. 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.
Today is the 50th anniversary of the launch of the Apollo 13 mission that never made it to the moon, the one where Commander Jim Lovell uttered the phrase “Houston, we've had a problem.” NASA calls the mission a “successful failure,” because even though an explosion crippled the primary spacecraft two days in, Lovell ...
You're inside the air that's being ripped apart as you're re-entering the atmosphere. Very little feeling, no shaking, no vibration, but you just see the heat that's being generated by the space shuttle entering the atmosphere.
The reason for the fast speed is to counteract gravity pulling things back to Earth. When the shuttle or any other object is put into space the moment the rocket engines are shut down the shuttle or any object starts falling back to Earth at 33 feet per second per second due to gravity.
It is usually moving parallel to the ground, at a speed of about 7 km/sec or 17,500 miles per hour. The reentry can occur at any time of the day. These reentries can often look like shooting stars (meteors) with a bright central body followed by a long, dazzling tail and often break into numerous fragments.
During re-entry, the shuttle is going so fast, it compresses the air ahead of it. The compression of the air layers near the leading edges of the shuttle is quick, causing the temperature of the air to rise to as high as 3000 degrees Fahrenheit! Being in contact with the shuttle, it heats the shuttle's surface.
The suit is equipped to regulate an astronaut's temperature as he or she endures the extreme heat of 250 degrees Fahrenheit in the Sun and -250 degrees Fahrenheit in the shadows. The suit must also be able to regulate the air inside to make sure the astronaut can breathe.
It's normal for astronauts to feel dizzy or faint when they come back to Earth. It's similar to what happens to people on Earth when they stand up quickly after sitting or lying down. The blood rushes away from the brain and your blood pressure drops temporarily.