Four Soviet ships headed toward the landing area to assist if needed,[144] and other nations offered assistance should the craft have to splash down elsewhere. [75] 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 (MESA) in the LM descent stage. [150] Damaged Teflon insulation on the wires to the stirring fan inside Oxygen Tank 2 allowed the wires to short-circuit and ignite this insulation. "[191] Former NASA chief historian Roger D. Launius wrote, "More than any other incident in the history of spaceflight, recovery from this accident solidified the world's belief in NASA's capabilities". [108][112] At 61:29:43.49 the DPS burn of 34.23 seconds took Apollo 13 back to a free return trajectory. [98][201] The film also invented the phrase "Failure is not an option", uttered by Harris as Kranz in the film; the phrase became so closely associated with Kranz that he used it for the title of his 2000 autobiography. [170] Devices were placed in the S-II second stage to counteract pogo oscillations. Water condensed on the walls, though any condensation that may have been behind equipment panels[130] caused no problems, partly because of the extensive electrical insulation improvements instituted after the Apollo 1 fire. The board's final report, sent to Paine on June 15,[149] 19700076776 . [168] The third tank was placed in Bay 1 of the SM, on the side opposite the other two, and was given an isolation valve that could isolate it from the fuel cells and from the other two oxygen tanks in an emergency and allow it to feed the CM's environmental system only. [15] At the time of Apollo 13, Lovell was the NASA astronaut with the most time in space, with 572 hours over the three missions. The others were Robert F. Allnutt (Assistant to the Administrator, NASA Hqs. [91], The crew settled in for the three-day trip to Fra Mauro. [8] Despite the successful lunar landing, the missions were considered so risky that astronauts could not afford life insurance to provide for their families if they died in space. Thus, it was built to withstand the heat of reentry into the Earth's atmosphere rather than pollute the air with plutonium in the event of an aborted mission. A new film explores the drama – and astronaut Jim Lovell … Normally this was done once daily; a stir would destratify the contents of the tanks, making the pressure readings more accurate. [93] Communications were enlivened when Swigert realized that in the last-minute rush, he had omitted to file his federal income tax return (due April 15), and amid laughter from mission controllers, asked how he could get an extension. Believing an inspirational teacher was needed, Schmitt arranged for Lovell and Haise to meet his old professor, Caltech's Lee Silver. [161], At NAR's facility, Oxygen Tank 2 had been originally installed in an oxygen shelf placed in the Apollo 10 service module, SM-106, but which was removed to fix a potential electromagnetic interference problem and another shelf substituted. ), that is, the time elapsed since liftoff of Apollo 13 on April 11, 1970, at 2:13 PM Eastern Standard Time (EST). Grumman, manufacturer of the LM, assigned a team of University of Toronto engineers, led by senior scientist Bernard Etkin, to solve the problem of how much air pressure to use to push the modules apart. [147], Immediately upon the crew's return, NASA Administrator Paine and Deputy Administrator George Low appointed a review board – chaired by NASA Langley Research Center Director Edgar M. Cortright and including Neil Armstrong and six others[note 5] – to investigate the accident. The seventh and final episode was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This probably damaged the thermostatically controlled switches on the heater, designed for only 28 volts. Apollo 13, U.S. spaceflight, launched on April 11, 1970, that suffered an oxygen tank explosion en route to the Moon, threatening the lives of three astronauts—commander Jim Lovell, lunar module pilot Fred Haise, and command module pilot Jack Swigert—who ultimately saved themselves. After the excitement of Apollo 11, the general public grew apathetic towards the space program and Congress continued to cut NASA's budget; Apollo 20 was canceled. The no. When Kranz questioned Liebergot on this, he initially responded that there might be false readings due to an instrumentation problem; he was often teased about that in the years to come. [17] Fred Haise, the lunar module pilot (LMP), was 35 years old. The FIDOs also proposed other solutions. As was usual whenever the Apollo team had to improvise, engineers and astronauts on the ground got busy devising ways around the problem and then checked out the new procedures. [207] Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, NASA did not hold any in-person events during April 2020 for the flight's 50th anniversary, but premiered a new documentary, Apollo 13: Home Safe on April 10, 2020. Mission rules forbade entering lunar orbit unless all fuel cells were operational. Starting with Apollo 10, the vehicle's guidance system was designed to shut the engine down in response to chamber pressure excursions. [175] Swigert was to have flown on the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (the first joint mission with the Soviet Union) but was removed as part of the fallout from the Apollo 15 postal covers incident. The tank was replaced with another for Apollo 10, and the exterior inspected. After a 20% "commercial discount", and a 2% discount for timely payment, the final total was $312,421.24. 55:52:00 G.E.T. [64], Apollo 13's designated landing site was near Fra Mauro crater; the Fra Mauro formation was believed to contain much material spattered by the impact that had filled the Imbrium basin early in the Moon's history. We still missed the point on board the carrier Iwo Jima, which picked us up, because the sailors had been as remote from the media as we were. The LM's Descent Propulsion System (DPS), although not as powerful as the SPS, could do this, but new software for Mission Control's computers needed to be written by technicians as it had never been contemplated that the CSM/LM spacecraft would have to be maneuvered from the LM. This "PC+2" burn would take place two hours after pericynthion, the closest approach to the Moon. in aerospace science; he had served in the Air Force and in state Air National Guards and was an engineering test pilot before being selected for the fifth group of astronauts in 1966. 2 oxygen tank used in Apollo 13 (North American Rockwell; serial number 10024X-TA0008) had originally been installed in Apollo 10. Le … [174], None of the Apollo 13 astronauts flew in space again. Almost everything in the CSM required power. The astronauts' peril briefly renewed public interest in the Apollo program; tens of millions watched the splashdown in the South Pacific Ocean on television. Episode 2 details Mission Control's denial and disbelief of the accident, with other episodes covering other aspects of the mission. Jack Lousma, the CAPCOM, sent minor instructions to Swigert, including changing the attitude of the craft to facilitate photography of Comet Bennett. Nonetheless, the switches Beech used were not rated for 65 volts. In 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy challenged his nation to land an astronaut on the Moon by the end of the decade, with a safe return to Earth. The Apollo 13 Review Board was charged with the responsibilities of reviewing the circumstances surrounding the accident, of establishing the probable causes of the accident, of assessing the effectiveness of flight recovery actions, of reporting these findings, and of developing recommendations for corrective or other actions. [61], The plan was to devote the first of the two four-hour lunar surface extravehicular activities (EVAs) to setting up the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP) group of scientific instruments; during the second, Lovell and Haise would investigate Cone crater, near the planned landing site. No Apollo astronaut flew without life insurance, but the policies were paid for by private third parties whose involvement was not publicized. It was decided to use the heater to "boil off" the excess oxygen, requiring 8 hours of 65 volt DC power. After discussion among NASA and the contractors, attempts to empty the tank resumed on March 27. After some retesting (which did not include filling the tank with liquid oxygen), in November 1968 the shelf was re-installed in SM-109, intended for Apollo 13, which was shipped to KSC in June 1969. [22] Slayton's original choices for Apollo 13 were Alan Shepard as commander, Stuart Roosa as CMP, and Mitchell as LMP. Lovell considered having the crew don their spacesuits, but decided this would be too hot. The LM was modified to make transfer of power from LM to CM easier. [132], The last problem to be solved was how to separate the lunar module a safe distance away from the command module just before reentry. The CM's systems had to be shut down to conserve its remaining resources for reentry, forcing the crew to transfer to the LM as a lifeboat. [193] Budget cuts made such a decision easier, and during the pause after Apollo 13, two missions were canceled, meaning that the program ended with Apollo 17 in December 1972. This was caused by severe pogo oscillations. The astronauts applied the solution, which was successful. [205][206], In advance of the 50th anniversary of the mission in 2020, an Apollo in Real Time site for the mission went online, allowing viewers to follow along as the mission unfolds, view photographs and video, and listen to the conversations, not only between Houston and the astronauts, but between mission controllers on the audio loops. That trainer was subsequently displayed at the Kentucky Science Center. June 1, 1970 . The role of the backup crew was to train and be prepared to fly in the event something happened to the prime crew. Even more outside the U.S. watched. Detailed chronology of events - A description of events from 2 and a half minutes before the accident to 5 minutes after. Some of this photography was to be performed by Swigert as Lovell and Haise walked on the Moon. But the accident could have damaged the SPS, and the fuel cells would have to last at least another hour to meet its power requirements, so Kranz instead decided on a longer route: the spacecraft would swing around the Moon before heading back to Earth. [note 1][9], Even before the first U.S. astronaut entered space in 1961, planning for a centralized facility to communicate with the spacecraft and monitor its performance had begun, for the most part the brainchild of Christopher C. Kraft Jr., who became NASA's first flight director. On April 14, 1970, the Apollo 13 Saturn IVB upper stage impacted the moon north of Mare Cognitum. The internal fill line was not known to be damaged, and this tank was later installed in Apollo 13. Nobody believes me, but during this six-day odyssey we had no idea what an impression Apollo 13 made on the people of Earth. Although the LM was designed to support two men on the lunar surface for two days, Mission Control in Houston improvised new procedures so it could support three men for four days. This seemed acceptable because the systems of Apollo 11's LM, once jettisoned in lunar orbit, had continued to operate for seven to eight hours even with the water cut off. [198][199], Following the flight, the crew planned to write a book, but they all left NASA without starting it. The procedure for building the device was read to the crew by CAPCOM Joseph Kerwin over the course of an hour, and it was built by Swigert and Haise; carbon dioxide levels began dropping immediately.