Apollo 13
11 Apr 1970, 19:13:00 – 17 Apr 1970, 18:07:4126 items
disasterspaceFrom “Houston, we’ve had a problem” to splashdown
Apollo 13 was meant to be the third landing on the Moon. Fifty-six hours out, an oxygen tank in the service module blew apart, and the mission became a four-day improvisation to bring three men home in a spacecraft built to land two of them on the Moon: the lunar module Aquarius, flown as a lifeboat.
The crew
Jim Lovell, commander
Jack Swigert, command module pilot, flying Odyssey
Fred Haise, lunar module pilot, flying Aquarius
How to read it
The mission phases are bands; the first hours after the explosion are told almost minute by minute inside “Crisis in Odyssey”. Filter by engine burns to follow the firings that steered the crippled ship home, by life support for the fight over oxygen, power, water and carbon dioxide, and by moon for the pass around the far side.
Times are UTC, from NASA’s Apollo by the Numbers and the Apollo 13 Flight Journal, with the mission clock (GET, ground elapsed time) in the notes. The explosion came just after 21:07 on 13 April in Houston, which was already 14 April in UTC.
Items
Liftoff
Second-stage centre engine shuts down early
Translunar injection
Odyssey docks with Aquarius
Off the free-return path
Television from Aquarius
Oxygen tank 2 explodes
“Houston, we’ve had a problem”
“We are venting something”
Back on free return
Farthest from Earth
Third stage hits the Moon
PC+2 burn
The “mailbox”
Steering by the terminator
Service module cast off
Odyssey wakes up
“Farewell, Aquarius”
“Okay, Joe”
Splashdown