On April 11, the third manned lunar landing mission was launched from Florida, carrying astronauts James A. Lovell, John L. Swigert, and Fred W. Haise. This was hyped as Apollo 13. The mission was to land on the Fra Mauro highlands of the moon. However, calamity struck two days into the mission when an oxygen tank blew up in the spacecraft.
Swigert reported the famous words,
Houston, we’ve had a problem here [1].
It was discovered that the normal supply of oxygen, electricity, light, and water had been disrupted. The landing mission was aborted while the astronauts and controllers on Earth hurried to devise emergency procedures. The crippled spacecraft continued to the moon, circled it, and began the journey home.
The astronauts and mission control were faced with enormous logistical problems in stabilizing. In part, they needed to stabilize the spacecraft and its oxygen supply while running on batteries due to the loss of the fuel cells. Navigation was another problem.
After less than one week of eventful misfortune, the astronauts landed back on Earth in the Pacific Ocean.
Notes:
- ^ {{Apollo 13 Returns to Earth}} (go back ↩)
