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.
During testing in March 1970, the reinstalled tank failed to properly empty itself of oxygen. The testing team decided to solve this problem by heating the tank overnight to force the liquid oxygen to burn off.
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.
It was April 17, 1970 when the crew of the Apollo 13 mission found themselves in a rather complicated situation, as well as dangerous, but thanks to an Omega Speedmaster they managed to save themselves.
Thus, during the Apollo 13 mission when all the equipment was off and they couldn't spare power to run the heaters, they were left with a ship designed to radiate heat away relatively quickly, even when in sunlight, but nothing but their own bodies and sunlight generating heat.
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.
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.
Within the service module were two tanks of liquid oxygen. Oxygen from these tanks was used not only for the astronauts to breathe, but to help run three fuel cells that provided electrical power to run the command ship's many systems.
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.
The O2 tanks were stirred in order to get an accurate reading on the gauging systems, as the cryogenic oxygen tends to solidify in the tanks, and stirring allows for a more accurate reading on the quantity of O2 remaining in the tank. But this was not the first time the crew had been ordered to stir the tank.
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.
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.
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.
Finding an unlikely hero in duct tape, NASA's ground team helped the astronauts create an adapter using the tape to connect spacesuit hoses and tube socks, saving Haise, Lovell, and Swigert.
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.
The purpose of stirring the cryogenic tanks containing the hydrogen and oxygen was to give more accurate readings of how much gas was left. But because of an electrical fault, one of the oxygen tanks exploded. Initially the crew thought a meteoroid had hit them, but it soon became apparent they were losing oxygen.
"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.
Because the command module iced up after powering down, water rained down on the astronauts after they took their seats for re-entry and splashdown. The possibility of a short circuit in the capsule further threatened the crew's chances of returning safely to Earth.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Book Details. The bold story of Katherine Johnson, an African-American mathematician who worked for NASA during the space race and was depicted in the film Hidden Figures. You've likely heard of the historic Apollo 13 moon landing.
Factual errors
Near the end of the movie, Lovell's character voice over says that Fred Haise was due to be part of the crew of Apollo 18. That's incorrect. Haise was part of the backup crew for Apollo 16 and so would have been due to fly on Apollo 19.