Mission Summary
Apollo 13 was intended to be NASA’s third lunar landing mission but became one of the greatest survival stories in the history of space exploration. Launched on April 11, 1970, the mission was proceeding normally until an oxygen tank exploded nearly two days into the flight, crippling the spacecraft and forcing NASA to abandon the planned landing. The crew of James Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise suddenly faced the challenge of surviving a journey of more than 300,000 kilometers from Earth with limited power, water, and oxygen.
Using the Lunar Module Aquarius as a lifeboat, the astronauts and mission controllers worked together to overcome a series of life-threatening problems. The spacecraft continued around the Moon on a free-return trajectory before beginning the long journey home, while engineers on the ground devised innovative solutions to keep the crew alive and safely navigate them back to Earth.
Apollo 13 demonstrated the skill, ingenuity, and teamwork of both the astronauts and NASA’s flight controllers. Although the mission never landed on the Moon, its successful recovery remains one of the agency’s greatest achievements and led to important improvements in spacecraft design and mission safety.
Sources and notes can be found on the Sources page.
