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.
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.
During this flight Haise developed a urinary tract infection and later kidney infections. These caused him to be in pain for most of the trip. Haise was slated to become the sixth human to walk on the Moon during Apollo 13 behind Lovell, who was to be fifth.
The astronauts and mission control were faced with enormous logistical problems in stabilizing the spacecraft and its oxygen supply, as well as running on batteries due to the loss of the fuel cells to allow successful reentry into Earth's atmosphere.
Apollo 13's primary mission objectives were to: "Perform selenological inspection, survey, and sampling of materials in a preselected region of the Fra Mauro Formation. Deploy and activate an Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package. Develop man's capability to work in the lunar environment.
As part of the Apollo 13 mission, Jim Lovell and Fred Haise were scheduled to walk on the Moon, but the lunar landing had to be aborted after an oxygen tank exploded two days later. The Apollo 13 mission did set a record as the farthest humans have ever travelled from Earth.
En route, an on-board explosion deprives their spacecraft of much of its oxygen supply and electrical power, which forces NASA's flight controllers to abort the Moon landing mission and improvise scientific and mechanical solutions to get the three astronauts to Earth safely.
The Apollo 13 mission was designated a successful failure because the crew was returned safely even though the odds were stacked against them. The success can be attributed to the amount of training and planning that goes into mission preparation.
It's the story of the engine that brought those astronauts home, and the chemist who invented it. On April 13, 1970, Gerard Elverum's pintle injector rocket engine fired for 34 seconds to put the damaged Apollo 13 spacecraft on a safe path back to Earth.
Apollo astronauts who walked on the Moon
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.
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.
Haise, along with commander Jim Lovell, was supposed to walk on the moon during Apollo 13. That all changed on April 13, 1970, when an oxygen tank exploded and badly damaged the command module, Odyssey.
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.
And, it had scorched wiring insulation from being tested at incorrect voltages. all the oxygen tanks from that facility had a similar problem. Fixing both of these would most certainly have prevented the Apollo 13 accident.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
During the Apollo 13 mission, the LM environmental control system provided a habitable environment for about 83 hours (57:45 to 141:05 GET). Cabin temperature remained low due to low electrical power levels. This caused crew discomfort during much of this period, with cabin temperatures ranging between 49°F and 55 °F.
Chain Reaction Leads to Explosion
But when Swigert turned on the fans on the second oxygen tank for a routine “cryo stir” on the night of April 13, the damaged wiring caused a spark, starting a fire. At 9:08 pm, with its internal pressure mounting, the tank exploded.
Time: 142:40:45, Return home
As Odyssey began its descent, tensions were high and the world was watching. Ionized air around the craft upon re-entry meant a total communications blackout, and for over four minutes NASA had no contact, fearing the shields or parachutes could still fail.
The Apollo 13 spacecraft heads toward a splashdown in the South Pacific Ocean. The Apollo 13 Command Module splashed down in the South Pacific at 12:07:44 p.m., April 17, 1970. Note the capsule and its parachutes just visible against a gap in the dark clouds.
All three took refuge in Aquarius and, abandoning Moon landing plans, looped around the Moon, using the LM's engine to speed their return to Earth instead of landing them on the lunar surface.
the fire that killed Apollo 1 astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White, and Roger B. Chaffee.
Anthony Kontaratos was truly one of the unsung heroes in the history of NASA, as he was not only the engineer responsible for helping save the crew of the Apollo 13 mission, but also one of the scientists who placed the first man on the moon.