Apollo 13

March 1970

The Lovell Family: Barbara (age 16), Marilyn, Jeffrey (age 3), Jim, and Susan (age 11). Son Jay (age 15) was a student at St. John's Military Academy in Wisconsin and wasn't present for the photo session.

Ground-level view of Pad A, Launch Complex 39, Kennedy Space Center, showing the Apollo 13 (Spacecraft 109/Lunar Module 7/Saturn 508) space vehicle during a Countdown Demonstration Test

The Apollo 13 Command and Service Module and Escape Tower photographed from the Mobile Service Structure

Jim Lovell celebrates his 42nd birthday

closeout views of Fred Haise's Portable Life Support System

original crew of Apollo 13 including Thomas K. Mattingly II

Fred Haise in the LM simulator

Apollo 13 command module backup pilot, John L. Swigert, Jr.

Apollo 13 crew on the day prior to liftoff

Apollo 13 astronauts eating breakfast in quarters prior to launch, l-r, Fred W. Haise, Jr., James A. Lovell, Jr., and John L. Swigert.

Apollo 13 Commander Jim Lovell during suitup on launch day

Apollo 13 astronauts, James A. Lovell, Jr., John L. Swigert, Jr., and Fred W. Haise, Jr. walking along hallway of Manned Spacecraft Operations Building en route to transfer van for launch of lunar landing mission.

Guenter Wendt assists the Apollo 13 crew in the pad white room

Liftoff of Apollo 13

Gene Kranz watches Apollo 13's 4th TV tranmission with trouble only minutes away; Fred Haise is on screen.

(NASA Caption) "A group of eight astronauts and flight controllers monitor the console activity in the Mission Operations Control Room (MOCR) of the Mission Control Center (MCC) during the Apollo 13 lunar landing mission. Seated, left to right, are MOCR Guidance Officer Raymond F. Teague; Astronaut Edgar D. Mitchell, and Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr., Standing, left to right, are Scientist-Astronaut Anthony W. England; Astronaut Joe H. Engle; Astronaut Eugene A. Cernan; Astronaut Ronald E. Evans; and M.P. Frank, a flight controller. When this picture was made, the Apollo 13 moon landing had already been cancelled, and the Apollo 13 crewmen were in transearth trajectory attempting to bring their crippled spacecraft back home." Mitchell and Shepard, along with Stu Roosa, are the Apollo 14 Prime Crew and Cernan, Evans, and Engle the Apollo 14 Back-up Crew. Tony England, who confirmed the following in a January 2006 e-mail, was to have been the Apollo 13 EVA CapCom; and later, at the request of John Young who was the Backup Commander on Apollo 13, Tony served with distinction as Mission Scientist and EVA CapCom on Apollo 16.

Apparently, Fred Haise found he could give the other guys a fright by actuating a lunar module relief valve, which made a loud bang. When the fuel cell tank exploded, taking out the whole side of the service module, the two first looked accusingly at him, thinking it was another of his jokes....

Once the seriousness of the situation became apparent, engineers on the ground got to work.

Even in the earliest days of Apollo, during 1962 when NASA was still trying to decide on a basic mission mode, proponents of lunar-orbit rendezvous had argued that, in certain circumstances, the LM engines could be used as backups in case of a Service Propulsion System failure. These "LM Lifeboat" scenarios were never studied in great detail, but enough people had given the general idea some thought - even to the extent of having run some flight control simulations - that, within an hour of the accident, flight engineers were busily calculating trajectories and burn durations, figuring out new navigation and flight control procedures, and refining estimates of just how long the critical supplies would hold out.

Deke Slayton (checked jacket) displays the adapter devised to make use of square Command Module lithium hydroxide canisters for removal of excess carbon dioxide from the Apollo 13 LM cabin

On the far side on the Moon at 0021GMT April 15 1970 (08:21 p.m. EST, 14 April), Apollo 13 was just 158 miles from the surface; but they had just set a record for being the furthest-travelled human beings. James A. Lovell, John L. Swigert and Fred W. Haise set a new record for the longest distance from Earth being 400,171 km or 248,655 statute miles away.

This is one of the pictures taken of the moon from Apollo 13.

Inflight photo of the device constructed by the crew from duct tape, maps and other materials they had on hand as per instructions provided by Houston. This device allowed use of box-shaped Command Module lithium hydroxide canisters in conjunction with the LM Environmental Control system, which is the large white unit that fills most of the frame. The LM LiOH canisters were cylindrical in shape and fit into the receptacles at the lower left.

Mission Control during final 24 hours of Apollo 13 mission

Mare Moscoviense (bottom left)

view of Apollo 13 astronauts changing one of the modified LiOH canisters

view from LM of Command Module and the Moon

view of Earth from Apollo 13

view of the crippled Service Module after separation

farewell to Lunar Module and lifeboat "Aquarius"

Apollo 13 Command Module descending towards the sea

Apollo 13 splashes down

Mission Control celebrates the safe return of Apollo 13

Apollo 13 recovery operations

view of Apollo 13 crew members aboard life rafts during recovery operations

Navy helicopter hovers over Apollo 13 spacecraft while net is lowered to pick up rescue swimmers of U.S. Navy Underwater Demolition team.

the Apollo 13 crew following recovery

Haise, Swigert and Lovell aboard U.S.S. Iwo Jima

Astronaut James Lovell reads newspaper account of Apollo 13 safe recovery

CM prior to being hoisted aboard "Iwo Jima"

Apollo 13 CM being hoisted aboard recovery ship U.S.S. Iwo Jima

Lovell and Swigert having dinner aboard Iwo Jima

CM interior during post flight inspection aboard Iwo Jima

President Nixon speaks at Hickam AFB prior to presenting Medal of Freedom

Apollo 13 crewmembers are photographed during the first day of their post-flight debriefing activity at the MSC; Dr. Donald K. Slayton (center foreground), MSC Director of Flight Crew Operations, talks with Dr. Wernher von Braun (right)

The No.2 oxygen tank, serial number 10024X-TA0009 had been previously installed in the service module of Apollo 10, but was removed for modification (and was damaged in the process of removal). The tank was fixed, tested at the factory and then installed in the Apollo 13 service module. It was tested again during the Countdown Demonstration Test at the Kennedy Space Center, beginning March 16, 1970.

The tanks normally are emptied about half way, and No.1 behaved all right. Number 2 dropped to only 92 percent of capacity. Gaseous oxygen at 80 pounds per square inch was applied through the vent line to expel the liquid oxygen, but without success. An interim discrepancy report was written, and on 27th March, two weeks before launch, detanking operations were resumed. No.1 again emptied normally, but No.2 did not. After a conference with contractor and NASA personnel, the test director decided to "boil off" the remaining oxygen in No.2 by using the electrical heater within the tank. The technique worked, but it took eight hours of 65 volt DC power from the ground-support equipment to dissipate the oxygen. Due to an oversight in replacing an underrated component during a design modification, this turned out to severely damage the internal heating elements of the tank. More specifically, it was the failure to replace thermostatically controlled switches (designed for 28 volt operation) with a new version (designed for 65V working) that was probably the main cause of the explosion. No-one noticed that these had already fused, and so were not working correctly even before takeoff.

It's interesting to note that another failure - that of the No2 tank quantity gauge - actually hastened the explosion, but caused it to happen at a time when the LM was still available as a lifeboat. The gauge failure resulted in Mission Control asking for more frequent stirring of the liquid oxygen, and the "problem" occurred after 5 stirrings since launch. On the normal schedule, the 5th stir would have occurred after LM separation. The CSM would have failed completely, and the remaining 2 astronauts would have been stranded on the Moon......

Apollo astronauts & Soyuz 9 crew at a backyard party (left-to-right: Armstrong, Aldrin, Anders, Nikolayev, McDivitt, Conrad, Cunningham, Stafford, Swigert, Gordon, Schweickart, Scott, Lovell, Slayton, Sevastyanov)