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That was just the first in a long line of hurdles that nearly cost the men their lives. Next came problems with all three engines during takeoff; each one had to burn at incorrect rates and for different times than intended. But ultimately, two days into the journey, it was an exposed wire that caused a fire in an oxygen tank that forced NASA to abort the mission and turn its focus to getting the men home — if they could. With the men now traveling inside the lunar module, landing on the moon was no longer a possibility, so Mission Control ordered Apollo 13 to swing around the moon and take a return course for Earth.
And we should just apply ground power because we have ground power at the launch site” — 65-volt ground power, while the spacecraft flew at 28-volt power. But years before the flight, this tank had been dropped in the factory. Now they tested it out for everything it had to do to supply oxygen to the spacecraft, but they failed to look at the mechanisms and the tubing to remove the oxygen after a routine test. So when the flight crew, after the last test, just two weeks before the flight, tried to remove the oxygen, they couldn’t do it.
Did Apollo 13 make it back?
For the first time, red stripes were placed on the helmet, arms and legs of the commander's A7L spacesuit. This was done as, after Apollo 11, those reviewing the images taken had trouble distinguishing Armstrong from Aldrin, but the change was approved too late for Apollo 12. New drink bags that attached inside the helmets and were to be sipped from as the astronauts walked on the Moon were demonstrated by Haise during Apollo 13's final television broadcast before the accident.
The material on this site can not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with prior written permission of Answers. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article . Britannica celebrates the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, highlighting suffragists and history-making politicians. Britannica is the ultimate student resource for key school subjects like history, government, literature, and more. Well, I have to tell you another interesting story along those lines.
How long did it take Apollo 13 to get back to earth?
A later investigation showed that the crew’s technological problems began long before they took flight. A design flaw in the No. 2 tank and mishandling of the equipment, which had originally been assigned to Apollo 10 and later removed to serve Apollo 13, laid the seeds of the spacecraft’s problems. Furthermore, after a pre-flight procedure in which workers tested the oxygen tanks at Kennedy Space Center, there was a problem emptying one tank, so they decided to use an electric heater to “boil off” the rest of the oxygen. The process caused significant damage to the electrical systems in the tank, melting away Teflon insulation that protected its inner wiring. As the mission neared its end, re-starting the command module for re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere was a challenge never before attempted.
The first two days of the mission went largely according to plan, if little noticed by the broader public. TV networks carried the crew’s primetime television broadcast the evening of April 13. But the world certainly took notice later that night when an oxygen tank in the service module exploded and put the mission — and the lives of the astronauts — in jeopardy.
Review board
Apollo 13 (April 11–17, 1970) was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo space program and the third meant to land on the Moon. The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the lunar landing was aborted after an oxygen tank in the service module failed two days into the mission. The crew instead looped around the Moon and returned safely to Earth on April 17. The mission was commanded by Jim Lovell, with Jack Swigert as command module pilot and Fred Haise as Lunar Module pilot. Swigert was a late replacement for Ken Mattingly, who was grounded after exposure to rubella.
Apollo 11 had left a seismometer on the Moon, but the solar-powered unit did not survive its first two-week-long lunar night. The Apollo 12 astronauts also left one as part of its ALSEP, which was nuclear-powered. Apollo 13 also carried a seismometer , similar to Apollo 12's, as part of its ALSEP, to be left on the Moon by the astronauts.
How Did They Get Apollo 13 Back To Earth
Even before they left the launching pad in Florida the mission seemed jinxed, with one astronaut, Tom Mattingly, becoming seriously ill and subsequently grounded, even though he was fully trained and ready to go. It meant that his replacement, Jack Swigert, had only a brief time to familiarize himself with the other astronauts, Jim Lovell and Fred Haise, and the lunar module’s operations. The LM carried enough oxygen, but that still left the problem of removing carbon dioxide, which was absorbed by canisters of lithium hydroxide pellets. The LM's stock of canisters, meant to accommodate two astronauts for 45 hours on the Moon, was not enough to support three astronauts for the return journey to Earth. The CM had enough canisters, but they were of a different shape and size to the LM's, hence unable to be used in the LM's equipment.
The two astronauts, and backups Young and Duke, went on a field trip with Silver at their own time and expense. At the end of their week together, Lovell made Silver their geology mentor, who would be extensively involved in the geology planning for Apollo 13. Farouk El-Baz oversaw the training of Mattingly and his backup, Swigert, which involved describing and photographing simulated lunar landmarks from airplanes.
A United States flag was also taken, to be erected on the Moon's surface. For Apollo 11 and 12, the flag had been placed in a heat-resistant tube on the front landing leg; it was moved for Apollo 13 to the Modularized Equipment Stowage Assembly in the LM descent stage. The structure to fly the flag on the airless Moon was improved from Apollo 12's.
Jim Lovell , Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise pose for their official portrait. Swigert had just replaced Ken Mattingly as command module pilot after Mattingly was exposed to German measles. The near-disaster of Apollo 13 was a stunning reminder of the perils of human spaceflight and how NASA, through ingenuity and perseverance, managed to overcome the incident and save the mission's three-man crew. In 1995, director Ron Howard would retell the Apollo 13 story in the film "Apollo 13" starring Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell. The LM did not have enough carbon-dioxide-scrubbing chemical canisters to keep the air breathable for three men all the way back to Earth. The astronauts had to build a crude adapter using spare parts on board, to make use of canisters meant for the command module.
” Lovell told Mission Control after peering out a window. Before moving into the re-entry communications blackout, Swigert said a kind of farewell, “I know all of us here want to thank all you guys down there for the very fine job you did! Then came the static of the ship’s re-entry communications blackout. The fuel cell oxygen supply valves were redesigned to isolate the Teflon-coated wiring from the oxygen.
Stranded in space, the Apollo 13 astronauts managed to find their way back home by using technology invented centuries earlier. En route to Honolulu, President Nixon stopped at Houston to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the Apollo 13 Mission Operations Team. He originally planned to give the award to NASA administrator Thomas O. Paine, but Paine recommended the mission operations team. Although fatigued, the crew was in good condition except for Haise, who had developed a serious urinary tract infection because of insufficient water intake. The crew stayed overnight on the ship and flew to Pago Pago, American Samoa, the next day. They flew to Hawaii, where President Richard Nixon awarded them the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor.
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