NASA's subsequent investigation revealed that the No. 2 oxygen tank onboard Apollo 13 had been accidentally dropped during maintenance before the Apollo 10 mission in 1969, causing slight internal damage that didn't show up in later inspections.
The Apollo 13 malfunction was caused by an explosion and rupture of oxygen tank no. 2 in the service module. The explosion ruptured a line or damaged a valve in the no. 1 oxygen tank, causing it to lose oxygen rapidly.
“Spaceflight, you're operating in a pretty difficult environment,” said Gene Kranz, the flight director who was in charge in mission control on the night of April 13, 1970, when Apollo 13 went awry. The mission had launched two days earlier, and the three astronauts aboard — James A. Lovell Jr., Fred W. Haise Jr.
Apollo 13 is remembered today as a “successful failure” in that the astronauts safely returned home despite not landing on the moon.
Apollo 13 is overall historically accurate. It portrays everything that happened on the spacecraft accurately. The important people involved in this were the three astronauts, Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert, added on with mission control, located in Houston, Texas.
To answer the updated question of "Would replacing a damaged tank have prevented the Apollo 13 incident"? Absolutely yes. Bearing in mind that that tank was damaged in two completely separate, mostly unrelated ways. It had some damaged plumbing, preventing a testing drain for completing correctly.
While talking to Hollywood Outbreak, Tom Hanks shared, “We just felt like an absolute idiot when Jim Lovell came by and we were flicking switches.” But to everyone's surprise, Jim said, “Hey, it looks like a real thing.” The actor shared that he was in doubt if they were giving justice to the real-life incident.
The nation's Moon landing program suffered a shocking setback on Jan. 27, 1967, with the deaths of Apollo 1 astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H.
Two Apollo missions were failures: a 1967 cabin fire killed the entire Apollo 1 crew during a ground test in preparation for what was to be the first crewed flight; and the third landing attempt on Apollo 13 was aborted by an oxygen tank explosion en route to the Moon, which disabled the CSM Odyssey's electrical power ...
It was the world's first known space tragedy. Veteran space pilots Virgil I. (Gus) Grissom, 40, and Edward H. White, 36, and rookie Roger Chaffee, 31, died in flames while lying on their backs in their moonship in a routine ground test for their Feb.
On April 13, 1970, disaster strikes 200,000 miles from Earth when oxygen tank No. 2 blows up on Apollo 13, the third manned lunar landing mission.
Among the many unsung heroes laboring to save the crew of the ill-fated Apollo 13 was the aerospace engineer and rookie astronaut Ken Mattingly.
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.
Update: A typical Apollo blackout lasted about 4 minutes. Due to a shallower re-entry path, Apollo 13's blackout was calculated to last about 4.5 minutes. Flight director Gene Kranz's logs show that it took about 6 minutes to re-establish contact with Apollo 13.
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.
Losing two or three fuel cells and any reentry batteries at any point in the mission demanded an emergency shutdown to conserve all onboard power for the trip home and reentry through the atmosphere. Losing one fuel cell was the only failure that didn't mean a bad day.
The demise was triggered when, in April 1970, an oxygen tank exploded two days after the launch of the Apollo 13 mission, threatening the lives of the astronauts on board. Missions after Apollo 17 were cancelled. But this was something of a pretext.
Time was running out. The Apollo 11 lunar module was on its historic descent to the moon's crater-pocked surface on 20 July 1969 when a fuel light blinked on. Still 100ft (30 metres) above the ground, it was not what the astronauts needed. The Eagle's tank was nearly dry.
Mitchell entered the changes with minutes to go until planned ignition. A second problem occurred during the powered descent, when the LM landing radar failed to lock automatically onto the Moon's surface, depriving the navigation computer of vital information on the vehicle's altitude and vertical descent speed.
On Jan. 27, 1967, a fire swept through the Apollo 1 Command Module during a launch rehearsal test, tragically killing the three astronauts trapped inside. Astronauts Gus Grissom (left), Ed White (middle), and Roger Chaffee (right), died on Jan.
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.
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.
Discussions between the Apollo 13 crew
According to Jim Lovell, there were no discussions or fights, as portrayed in the movie. The most important thing for the crew at that point was to focus on their greatest goal: to return home.
By the time Apollo 13 came around, the television networks didn't even bother covering the launch because they felt there wasn't enough interest. Apollo 13 was to be the most ambitious mission yet.
In Apollo 13 (1995), the real Jim Lovell plays the captain of the USS Iwo Jima. Double movie detail: the director wanted to portray him as an admiral, but Lovell insisted on portraying the actual rank he had achieved when he retired from the Navy. He also wore his old uniform.