Quickly thrust the mission into pure chaos

Apollo 13 was the seventh human-crewed mission in the Apollo Space program from 1961 to 1975. The mission aimed to conduct geological experiments while exploring the Imbrium Basin and Fra Mauro highlands of the moon. The spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on April 11, 1970, with James Lovell, John Swigert, and Fred Haise aboard. However, on April 13, 1970, an oxygen tank on board exploded, throwing the mission into chaos. [i]

The oxygen tank explosion caused a series of problems that the astronauts had to solve to stay alive. First, the spacecraft’s oxygen and power supply were severely damaged. Additionally, the crew had to move to the lunar module, which had limited resources and was not designed to sustain three astronauts for four days. [i]

The explosion disabled the regular supply of oxygen, electricity, light, and water, and the Command Module began leaking oxygen while rapidly losing fuel cells. As a result, the moon landing mission was aborted, and the crew was instructed to move to the Landing Module (LM), which had sufficient oxygen, to use as a lifeboat. [ii]

The LM was only designed to transport astronauts from the orbiting CM to the moon’s surface and back again, so conditions were challenging. The three-person crew went on one-fifth water rations and endured cabin temperatures a few degrees above freezing to conserve energy. [ii]

They also had to remove carbon dioxide, which became a problem due to the incompatibility of the round openings in the LM environmental system with the square lithium hydroxide canisters from the CM. Mission control built an impromptu adapter out of materials known to be onboard, and the crew successfully copied their model. [iii]

The Apollo 13 crew inside the Lunar Module (LM). Photo by NASA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Navigation was also a significant challenge. The LM had a more rudimentary navigational system, and the astronauts and mission control had to figure out by hand the changes in propulsion and direction needed to take the spacecraft home. The crew swung around the moon on April 14, 1970, and took pictures before firing the LM’s small descent engine, which was a success. Finally, Apollo 13 was headed toward home. [iii]

Four days later, on April 17, 1970, the spacecraft reentered Earth’s atmosphere. Mission control feared that the CM’s heat shields were damaged in the accident and waited a harrowing four minutes without radio communication from the crew. [iv]

Fortunately, Apollo 13’s parachutes were spotted, and all three astronauts, Lovell, Haise, and Swigert, splashed safely into the Pacific Ocean. They had set a Guinness World Record for the farthest distance from Earth reached by humans: 254 km (158 miles) from the lunar surface on the moon’s far side and 400,171 km (248,655 miles) above the Earth’s surface. [iv]

Despite the challenges, the crew safely returned to Earth on April 17, 1970, thanks to the astronauts and ground crew’s ingenuity and resourcefulness. Their heroic efforts have symbolized human resilience and determination when facing adversity. [v]

Watch the video below for the launch of Apollo 13 from the astronauts’ point of view.

References

[i] NASA,The Apollo 13 Accident(2023)

[ii] Jim Banke,What Caused the Apollo 13 Accident?(Apr. 13, 2000)

[iii] Britannica,Apollo 13 – United States spaceflight(Oct. 6, 2009)

[iv]Id.

[v] NASA,The Apollo 13 Accident(2023)