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failed United States 1970 · 6 days

Apollo 13

Oxygen tank explosion forced an abort. Crew used the LM as a lifeboat and returned safely.

Trajectory
Apollo 13 trajectory diagram
Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

55 hours after launch, an oxygen tank in the Service Module exploded, crippling the spacecraft. Mission Control aborted the landing and shifted to a free-return trajectory using the Lunar Module Aquarius as a lifeboat, its descent engine performed two course corrections to bring the crew home. The free-return path took Apollo 13 around the far side of the Moon (the farthest humans had ever been from Earth: 400,171 km) before a successful Pacific splashdown.

Crew · 3
  • Jim Lovell official portrait
    Jim Lovell
    Commander
  • Jack Swigert official portrait
    Jack Swigert
    Command Module Pilot
  • Fred Haise official portrait
    Fred Haise
    Lunar Module Pilot
Portraits courtesy of NASA
Details
Operator
NASA
Country
United StatesUnited States
Era
apollo
Duration
6 days
Crew
3
Photos · Courtesy of NASA