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.
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.
Using only material available on the spacecraft, Mission Control workers began devising a mechanism that would provide more carbon dioxide buffering. The ultimate solution involved using a piece of cardboard, a plastic bag, a hose from a pressure suit, duct tape and a sock to connect the command module scrubbers.
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.
The entire spaceflight crew lost weight, and Haise developed a kidney infection. But the small vessel protected and carried the crew long enough to reach Earth's atmosphere. In the hours before splashdown, the exhausted crew scrambled back over to the Odyssey powered it up.
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. Astronauts James A.
Mattingly had been scheduled to fly on the Apollo 13 mission, but three days prior to launch, he was held back and replaced by Jack Swigert due to exposure to German measles (which Mattingly did not contract).
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.
Haise and Jack Swigert were the first people from Group 5 to fly in space. 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.
The Apollo 13 malfunction was caused by an explosion and rupture of oxygen tank no. 2 in the service module.
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.
At 18:07 UT, 142 hours and 54 minutes after launching, Apollo 13 arrived home. Safe. The recovery ship USS Iwo Jima rushed the crew to Honolulu where their families awaited. While they recovered from their ordeal, NASA hunted down the accident's cause.
Premier Aleksei N. Kosygin sent a message saying:"Iwant to inform you (U.S. Government)the Soviet Government has given orders to all citizens and members of the armed forces to use all necessary means to render assistance in the rescue of the American (Apollo 13)astronauts." The Moon from Apollo 13.
Using a clever solution of a plastic bag, cardstock, a spacesuit hose, and that stuff that holds everything together, duct tape, the engineers in Mission Control mocked up an altered lithium hydroxide filter. The astronauts then recreated the contraption (nicknamed “the mailbox”) on the LM. It was a massive success!
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.
HOUSTON, Texas -- It was April 13, 1970 that the now famous words were spoken from Apollo 13, "Houston, we've had a problem." Apollo 13 had just experienced an explosion and astronaut Jim Lovell called mission control in Houston to report the problem.
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.
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.
Apollo 13 is arguably the most realistic movie about space out there. The Ron Howard-directed film chronicles the challenges that the real-life crew of NASA's Apollo 13 mission faced when they had to turn around from their lunar destination after one of their oxygen tanks malfunctioned.
Mattingly finally made it to the moon himself on Apollo 16. He performed observations and experiments from orbit while his crewmates, John Young and Charles Duke, did 20-plus hours of exploration on the surface. "I had this very palpable fear that if I saw too much, I couldn't remember. It was just so impressive.
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 TLI placed Apollo on a "free-return trajectory" - often illustrated as a figure of eight shape. This course would have harnessed the power of the Moon's gravity to propel the spacecraft back to Earth without the need for more rocket fuel.
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.
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.