171-466: Apollo 13 (April 11–17, 1970) was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo space program and would have been the third Moon landing . The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the landing was aborted after an oxygen tank in the service module (SM) exploded two days into the mission, disabling its electrical and life-support system . The crew, supported by backup systems on
342-707: A meteoroid might have struck the LM, but he and Lovell quickly realized there was no leak. The "Main Bus ;B undervolt" meant that there was insufficient voltage produced by the SM's three fuel cells (fueled by hydrogen and oxygen piped from their respective tanks) to the second of the SM's two electric power distribution systems. Almost everything in the CSM required power. Although the bus momentarily returned to normal status, soon both buses A and B were short on voltage. Haise checked
513-541: A mission module cabin separate from the command module (piloting and reentry cabin), and a propulsion and equipment module . On August 30, a feasibility study competition was announced, and on October 25, three study contracts were awarded to General Dynamics/Convair , General Electric , and the Glenn L. Martin Company . Meanwhile, NASA performed its own in-house spacecraft design studies led by Maxime Faget , to serve as
684-552: A seismometer on the Moon, but the solar-powered unit did not survive its first two-week-long lunar night. The Apollo 12 astronauts also left one as part of its ALSEP, which was nuclear-powered. Apollo 13 also carried a seismometer (known as the Passive Seismic Experiment, or PSE), similar to Apollo 12's, as part of its ALSEP, to be left on the Moon by the astronauts. That seismometer was to be calibrated by
855-589: A urinary tract infection . This infection was probably caused by the reduced water intake, but microgravity and effects of cosmic radiation might have impaired his immune system's reaction to the pathogen. Apollo program The Apollo program , also known as Project Apollo , was the United States human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which succeeded in preparing and landing
1026-432: A "reboot" of all crewed mission plans. In September 1967, NASA created a list of remaining mission types necessary to achieve the first crewed lunar landing, each designated by a letter A through G, where G would be the first crewed landing. This list was later extended through letter J to cover follow-on lunar missions. Two uncrewed Saturn V test launches ( A missions) were flown as Apollo 4 and Apollo 6 . A third test
1197-773: A 130-million-cubic-foot (3,700,000 m ) Vertical Assembly Building (VAB). in which the space vehicle (launch vehicle and spacecraft) would be assembled on a mobile launcher platform and then moved by a crawler-transporter to one of several launch pads. Although at least three pads were planned, only two, designated A and B, were completed in October 1965. The LOC also included an Operations and Checkout Building (OCB) to which Gemini and Apollo spacecraft were initially received prior to being mated to their launch vehicles. The Apollo spacecraft could be tested in two vacuum chambers capable of simulating atmospheric pressure at altitudes up to 250,000 feet (76 km), which
1368-440: A 60-day extension for being out of the country at the deadline. Entry into the LM to test its systems had been scheduled for 58:00:00; when the crew awoke on the third day of the mission, they were informed it had been moved up three hours and was later moved up again by another hour. A television broadcast was scheduled for 55:00:00; Lovell, acting as emcee, showed the audience the interiors of Odyssey and Aquarius . The audience
1539-557: A byproduct, but the LM was powered by silver-zinc batteries which did not, so both electrical power and water (needed for equipment cooling as well as drinking) would be critical. LM power consumption was reduced to the lowest level possible; Swigert was able to fill some drinking bags with water from the CM's water tap, but even assuming rationing of personal consumption, Haise initially calculated they would run out of water for cooling about five hours before reentry. This seemed acceptable because
1710-493: A centralized facility to communicate with the spacecraft and monitor its performance had begun, for the most part the brainchild of Christopher C. Kraft Jr. , who became NASA's first flight director . During John Glenn 's Mercury Friendship 7 flight in February 1962 (the first crewed orbital flight by the U.S.), one of Kraft's decisions was overruled by NASA managers. He was vindicated by post-mission analysis and implemented
1881-470: A commitment on America's response to the Soviets. On April 20, Kennedy sent a memo to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson , asking Johnson to look into the status of America's space program, and into programs that could offer NASA the opportunity to catch up. Johnson responded approximately one week later, concluding that "we are neither making maximum effort nor achieving results necessary if this country
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#17327868335242052-460: A gauge to judge and monitor the three industry designs. In November 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected president after a campaign that promised American superiority over the Soviet Union in the fields of space exploration and missile defense . Up to the election of 1960, Kennedy had been speaking out against the " missile gap " that he and many other senators said had developed between
2223-492: A great new American enterprise—time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on Earth. ... I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important in
2394-462: A limited Earth orbital mission, Apollo would carry three. Possible missions included ferrying crews to a space station , circumlunar flights , and eventual crewed lunar landings . In July 1960, NASA Deputy Administrator Hugh L. Dryden announced the Apollo program to industry representatives at a series of Space Task Group conferences. Preliminary specifications were laid out for a spacecraft with
2565-409: A precision landing, mission planners were able to focus on more than just landing safely and having astronauts minimally trained in geology gather lunar samples to take home to Earth. There was a greater role for science on Apollo 13, especially for geology, something emphasized by the mission's motto, Ex luna, scientia (From the Moon, knowledge). Apollo 13's mission commander, Jim Lovell ,
2736-704: A prime crew assignment, as both were out of favor – Cooper for his lax attitude towards training, and Eisele for incidents aboard Apollo 7 and an extramarital affair. He assigned them to the backup crew because no other veteran astronauts were available. Slayton's original choices for Apollo 13 were Alan Shepard as commander, Stuart Roosa as CMP, and Mitchell as LMP. However, management felt Shepard needed more training time, as he had only recently resumed active status after surgery for an inner ear disorder and had not flown since 1961. Thus, Lovell's crew (himself, Haise and Ken Mattingly ), having all backed up Apollo 11 and being slated for Apollo 14 ,
2907-524: A problem here," echoed at 55:55:42 by Lovell, "Houston, we've had a problem. We've had a Main B Bus undervolt." William Fenner was the guidance officer (GUIDO) who was the first to report a problem in the control room to Kranz. Lovell's initial thought on hearing the noise was that Haise had activated the LM's cabin-repressurization valve, which also produced a bang (Haise enjoyed doing so to startle his crewmates), but Lovell could see that Haise had no idea what had happened. Swigert initially thought that
3078-404: A reaction control system. The initial LM model weighed approximately 33,300 pounds (15,100 kg), and allowed surface stays up to around 34 hours. An extended lunar module (ELM) weighed over 36,200 pounds (16,400 kg), and allowed surface stays of more than three days. The contract for design and construction of the lunar module was awarded to Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation , and
3249-490: A rule that, during the mission, the flight director's word was absolute – to overrule him, NASA would have to fire him on the spot. Flight directors during Apollo had a one-sentence job description, "The flight director may take any actions necessary for crew safety and mission success." Houston's Mission Control Center was opened in 1965. It was in part designed by Kraft and now named for him. In Mission Control, each flight controller, in addition to monitoring telemetry from
3420-428: A short story by science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke . In his book, Lovell indicated he chose the name Odyssey because he liked the word and its definition: a long voyage with many changes of fortune. Due to the accident and the last minute crew change of Jack Swigert replacing Ken Mattingly three days prior to launch, the Apollo 13 Robbins medallions flown aboard the mission were melted down and reminted after
3591-513: A simulation of the Apollo 11 first landing. Schirra's crew would fly the C mission, first crewed CSM (Block II CSM-101, retrofitted with the cabin safety improvements) as Apollo 7 in October 1968. McDivitt's crew and mission were kept as the first crewed development LM flight ( D mission); this was planned to be Apollo 8 in December 1968, now using a single Saturn V launch vehicle instead of two separate Saturn IB launches. The E mission
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#17327868335243762-558: A spacecraft that could meet it while minimizing risk to human life, limiting cost, and not exceeding limits in possible technology and astronaut skill. Four possible mission modes were considered: In early 1961, direct ascent was generally the mission mode in favor at NASA. Many engineers feared that rendezvous and docking, maneuvers that had not been attempted in Earth orbit , would be nearly impossible in lunar orbit . LOR advocates including John Houbolt at Langley Research Center emphasized
3933-427: A teacher. Concerned about how close Apollo 11's LM, Eagle , had come to running out of propellant during its lunar descent, mission planners decided that beginning with Apollo 13, the CSM would bring the LM to the low orbit from which the landing attempt would commence. This was a change from Apollo 11 and 12, on which the LM made the burn to bring it to the lower orbit. The change was part of an effort to increase
4104-428: A training simulation for Apollo 10 in which the LM was needed for survival, but could not be powered up in time. Had Apollo 13's accident occurred on the return voyage, with the LM already jettisoned, the astronauts would have died, as they would have following an explosion in lunar orbit, including one while Lovell and Haise walked on the Moon. A key decision was the choice of return path. A "direct abort" would use
4275-551: A translunar injection (TLI) about two hours later, setting the mission on course for the Moon. After TLI, Swigert performed the separation and transposition maneuvers before docking the CSM Odyssey to the LM Aquarius , and the spacecraft pulled away from the third stage. Ground controllers then sent the third stage on a course to impact the Moon in range of the Apollo 12 seismometer, which it did just over three days into
4446-499: Is even more uncertainty. Based on normal crew rotation, the crew would likely have been: Another possibility would have been: One of the surplus CSMs, CSM-119, was modified to carry two additional crew and kept on standby for a potential rescue mission in case of issues on-board Skylab . During Skylab 3 , a malfunction on the Apollo CSM docked to the station caused fears that the crew would not be able to return safely. CSM-119
4617-508: Is nearly a vacuum. Administrator Webb realized that in order to keep Apollo costs under control, he had to develop greater project management skills in his organization, so he recruited George E. Mueller for a high management job. Mueller accepted, on the condition that he have a say in NASA reorganization necessary to effectively administer Apollo. Webb then worked with Associate Administrator (later Deputy Administrator) Seamans to reorganize
4788-768: Is one of only two Apollo mission insignia – the other being Apollo 11 – not to include the names of the crew. It was designed by artist Lumen Martin Winter , who based it on a mural he had painted for the St. Regis Hotel in New York City. The mural was later purchased by actor Tom Hanks , who portrayed Lovell in the movie Apollo 13 , and it is now in the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in Illinois. The mission's motto
4959-472: Is to reach a position of leadership." His memo concluded that a crewed Moon landing was far enough in the future that it was likely the United States would achieve it first. On May 25, 1961, twenty days after the first US crewed spaceflight Freedom 7 , Kennedy proposed the crewed Moon landing in a Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs : Now it is time to take longer strides—time for
5130-491: The Apollo 13 incident and further budget cuts. Two Skylab missions also ended up being canceled. Two complete Saturn V rockets remained unused and were put on display in the United States. In September 1962, NASA planned to make four crewed low-Earth-orbital test flights of partially equipped Block I Command/Service Modules (CSM) using the Saturn I launch vehicle, designated SA-11 through SA-14, in 1965 and 1966. However,
5301-616: The Apollo command and service module , succeeding the Mercury program . A lunar landing became the focus of the program only in 1961. Thereafter Project Gemini instead followed the Mercury program to test and study advanced crewed spaceflight technology. The Apollo program was conceived during the Eisenhower administration in early 1960, as a follow-up to Project Mercury. While the Mercury capsule could support only one astronaut on
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5472-572: The Extended Lunar Module , capable of three-day stays on the Moon and carrying the Lunar Roving Vehicle : As the later missions were up to three years in the future, little detailed planning was made, and a variety of landing sites were given for some flights. According to "NASA OMSF, Manned Space Flight Weekly Report" dated July 28, 1969, Apollo 18 would have landed at Schröter's Valley in February 1972, Apollo 19 in
5643-685: The Hyginus rille region in July 1972, and Apollo 20 in Copernicus crater in December 1972. Other proposed landing sites and schedules for the last three missions included Gassendi crater (Apollo 18, July 1973), Copernicus (Apollo 19, December 1973), and Marius Hills or Tycho crater (Apollo 20, July 1974). As a number of ambitious Apollo Applications Programs were planned, it was still hoped in 1969 that further Saturn V launch vehicles could be contracted, allowing for more ambitious lunar missions. In
5814-458: The Moon by the end of the decade, with a safe return to Earth. NASA worked towards this goal incrementally, sending astronauts into space during Project Mercury and Project Gemini , leading up to the Apollo program . The goal was achieved with Apollo 11 , which landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the lunar surface while Michael Collins orbited
5985-484: The S-II second stage's cryogenic tanks were insulated; on earlier Apollo missions this came in the form of panels that were affixed, but beginning with Apollo 13, insulation was sprayed onto the exterior of the tanks. Extra propellant was carried as a test, since future J missions to the Moon would require more propellant for their heavier payloads. This made the vehicle the heaviest yet flown by NASA, and Apollo 13
6156-473: The SPS ." Ironically, just such a failure happened on Apollo 13 when an oxygen tank explosion left the CSM without electrical power. The lunar module provided propulsion, electrical power and life support to get the crew home safely. Faget's preliminary Apollo design employed a cone-shaped command module, supported by one of several service modules providing propulsion and electrical power, sized appropriately for
6327-488: The Saturn V launch vehicle and LOR by forcing Shea, Seamans, and even Webb to defend themselves, delaying its formal announcement to the press on July 11, 1962, and forcing Webb to still hedge the decision as "tentative". Wiesner kept up the pressure, even making the disagreement public during a two-day September visit by the President to Marshall Space Flight Center . Wiesner blurted out "No, that's no good" in front of
6498-459: The Soviet Union was planning their own circumlunar flight for December to upstage the Americans once again (see Zond program ). McDivitt's crew—who had grown accustomed to working with LM-3 and preparing for its flight—was kept on the D mission which now became Apollo 9 , while Borman's crew would fly the CSM lunar orbit mission on Apollo 8 , and the E mission was canceled. The swap of crews
6669-526: The U.S. Air Force , so he got Webb's permission to recruit General Samuel C. Phillips , who gained a reputation for his effective management of the Minuteman program, as OMSF program controller. Phillips's superior officer Bernard A. Schriever agreed to loan Phillips to NASA, along with a staff of officers under him, on the condition that Phillips be made Apollo Program Director. Mueller agreed, and Phillips managed Apollo from January 1964, until it achieved
6840-401: The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission , SNAP-27 was first flown on Apollo 12. The fuel capsule contained about 3.79 kilograms (8.36 lb) of plutonium oxide . The cask placed around the capsule for transport to the Moon was built with heat shields of graphite and of beryllium, and with structural parts of titanium and of Inconel materials. Thus, it was built to withstand the heat of reentry into
7011-737: The White Sands Missile Range between May 1964 and January 1966. Saturn I, the first US heavy lift launch vehicle, was initially planned to launch partially equipped CSMs in low Earth orbit tests. The S-I first stage burned RP-1 with liquid oxygen (LOX) oxidizer in eight clustered Rocketdyne H-1 engines, to produce 1,500,000 pounds-force (6,670 kN) of thrust. The S-IV second stage used six liquid hydrogen-fueled Pratt & Whitney RL-10 engines with 90,000 pounds-force (400 kN) of thrust. The S-V third stage flew inactively on Saturn I four times. The first four Saturn I test flights were launched from LC-34, with only
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7182-492: The command and service module (CSM), and all three landed safely on Earth in the Pacific Ocean on July 24. Five subsequent Apollo missions also landed astronauts on the Moon, the last, Apollo 17 , in December 1972. In these six spaceflights, twelve people walked on the Moon . Apollo ran from 1961 to 1972, with the first crewed flight in 1968. It encountered a major setback in 1967 when an Apollo 1 cabin fire killed
7353-633: The fifth group of astronauts in 1966. Fred Haise , the lunar module pilot (LMP), was 35 years old. He held a B.S. in aeronautical engineering, had been a Marine Corps fighter pilot, and was a civilian research pilot for NASA when he was selected as a Group 5 astronaut. According to the standard Apollo crew rotation, the prime crew for Apollo 13 would have been the backup crew for Apollo 10 , with Mercury and Gemini veteran Gordon Cooper in command, Donn F. Eisele as CMP and Edgar Mitchell as LMP. Deke Slayton , NASA's Director of Flight Crew Operations, never intended to rotate Cooper and Eisele to
7524-477: The lunar module (LM), instead looped around the Moon in a circumlunar trajectory and returned safely to Earth on April 17. The mission was commanded by Jim Lovell , with Jack Swigert as command module (CM) pilot and Fred Haise as lunar module (LM) pilot. Swigert was a late replacement for Ken Mattingly , who was grounded after exposure to rubella . A routine stir of an oxygen tank ignited damaged wire insulation inside it, causing an explosion that vented
7695-619: The " Vomit Comet " in simulated microgravity or lunar gravity, including practice in donning and doffing spacesuits. To prepare for the descent to the Moon's surface, Lovell flew the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle (LLTV) after receiving helicopter training. Despite the crashes of one LLTV and one similar Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV) prior to Apollo 13, mission commanders considered flying them invaluable experience and so prevailed on reluctant NASA management to retain them. Apollo 13's designated landing site
7866-450: The "5" indicating Saturn V. The three-stage Saturn V was designed to send a fully fueled CSM and LM to the Moon. It was 33 feet (10.1 m) in diameter and stood 363 feet (110.6 m) tall with its 96,800-pound (43,900 kg) lunar payload. Its capability grew to 103,600 pounds (47,000 kg) for the later advanced lunar landings. The S-IC first stage burned RP-1/LOX for a rated thrust of 7,500,000 pounds-force (33,400 kN), which
8037-462: The 1960s and 1970s were canceled, for reasons which included changes in technical direction, the Apollo 1 fire , hardware delays, and budget limitations. After the landing by Apollo 12 , Apollo 20, which would have been the final crewed mission to the Moon, was canceled to allow Skylab to launch as a "dry workshop" (assembled on the ground in an unused S-IVB Saturn IB second stage). The next two missions, Apollos 18 and 19, were later canceled after
8208-451: The 1960s, President Kennedy's target date. The LOR method had the advantage of allowing the lander spacecraft to be used as a "lifeboat" in the event of a failure of the command ship. Some documents prove this theory was discussed before and after the method was chosen. In 1964 an MSC study concluded, "The LM [as lifeboat] ... was finally dropped, because no single reasonable CSM failure could be identified that would prohibit use of
8379-501: The Apollo program an astronaut, who was responsible for voice communications with the crew) for Apollo 13 were Kerwin, Brand, Lousma, Young and Mattingly. The Apollo 13 mission insignia depicts the Greek god of the Sun, Apollo , with three horses pulling his chariot across the face of the Moon, and the Earth seen in the distance. This is meant to symbolize the Apollo flights bringing
8550-499: The C mission that would fly the CSM in Earth orbit, they could send the CSM all the way to the Moon and maybe even enter into orbit. This mission was dubbed "C-Prime" (an imaginary letter between C and D). This new mission would allow NASA to practice procedures for a lunar flight that would otherwise have to wait until Apollo 10 , the F mission. There were also concerns from the Central Intelligence Agency that
8721-412: The CSM's electrical system) requested that the stirring fans in the tanks be activated. Normally this was done once daily; a stir would destratify the contents of the tanks, making the pressure readings more accurate. The Flight Director, Kranz, had Liebergot wait a few minutes for the crew to settle down after the telecast, then Lousma relayed the request to Swigert, who activated the switches controlling
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#17327868335248892-523: The CSM's role to the translunar ferry used to transport the crew, along with a new spacecraft, the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM, later shortened to LM (Lunar Module) but still pronounced / ˈ l ɛ m / ) which would take two individuals to the lunar surface and return them to the CSM. The command module (CM) was the conical crew cabin, designed to carry three astronauts from launch to lunar orbit and back to an Earth ocean landing. It
9063-579: The Canaveral launch facilities in Florida . The two newest launch complexes were already being built for the Saturn I and IB rockets at the northernmost end: LC-34 and LC-37 . But an even bigger facility would be needed for the mammoth rocket required for the crewed lunar mission, so land acquisition was started in July 1961 for a Launch Operations Center (LOC) immediately north of Canaveral at Merritt Island . The design, development and construction of
9234-430: The Earth's atmosphere or return to Earth, its fuselage was designed totally without aerodynamic considerations and was of an extremely lightweight construction. It consisted of separate descent and ascent stages, each with its own engine. The descent stage contained storage for the descent propellant, surface stay consumables, and surface exploration equipment. The ascent stage contained the crew cabin, ascent propellant, and
9405-503: The Earth's atmosphere rather than pollute the air with plutonium in the event of an aborted mission. A United States flag was also taken, to be erected on the Moon's surface. For Apollo 11 and 12, the flag had been placed in a heat-resistant tube on the front landing leg; it was moved for Apollo 13 to the Modularized Equipment Stowage Assembly (MESA) in the LM descent stage. The structure to fly
9576-570: The Earth, Gilruth had moved his organization to rented space in Houston, and construction of the MSC facility was under way, Kennedy visited Rice to reiterate his challenge in a famous speech : But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain ? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic ? ... We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to
9747-513: The Earth-Moon system. Apollo 13 had twelve cameras on board, including those for television and moving pictures. The crew was also to downlink bistatic radar observations of the Moon. None of these was attempted because of the accident. The mission was launched at the planned time, 2:13:00 pm EST (19:13:00 UTC) on April 11. An anomaly occurred when the second-stage, center (inboard) engine shut down about two minutes early. This
9918-581: The LM's guidance system, which had been turned off; at his request Mission Control checked his figures. At 61:29:43.49 the DPS burn of 34.23 seconds took Apollo 13 back to a free return trajectory. The change would get Apollo 13 back to Earth in about four days' time – though with splashdown in the Indian Ocean , where NASA had few recovery forces. Jerry Bostick and other Flight Dynamics Officers (FIDOs) were anxious both to shorten
10089-491: The LM; the crew and mission controllers were successful in improvising a solution. The astronauts' peril briefly renewed public interest in the Apollo program; tens of millions watched the splashdown in the South Pacific Ocean on television. An investigative review board found fault with preflight testing of the oxygen tank and Teflon being placed inside it. The board recommended changes, including minimizing
10260-613: The Moon by the end of 1969 required the most sudden burst of technological creativity, and the largest commitment of resources ($ 25 billion; $ 182 billion in 2023 US dollars) ever made by any nation in peacetime. At its peak, the Apollo program employed 400,000 people and required the support of over 20,000 industrial firms and universities. On July 1, 1960, NASA established the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama . MSFC designed
10431-505: The Moon in Command Module Columbia . The mission returned to Earth on July 24, 1969, fulfilling Kennedy's challenge. NASA had contracted for fifteen Saturn V rockets to achieve the goal; at the time no one knew how many missions this would require. Since success was obtained in 1969 with the sixth Saturn V on Apollo 11, nine rockets remained available for a hoped-for total of ten landings . After
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#173278683352410602-628: The Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills; because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win ... The MSC was completed in September 1963. It was renamed by the US Congress in honor of Lyndon Johnson soon after his death in 1973. It also became clear that Apollo would outgrow
10773-676: The Moon, crippling the CSM. The crew barely managed a safe return to Earth by using the lunar module as a "lifeboat" on the return journey. Apollo used the Saturn family of rockets as launch vehicles, which were also used for an Apollo Applications Program , which consisted of Skylab , a space station that supported three crewed missions in 1973–1974, and the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, a joint United States - Soviet Union low Earth orbit mission in 1975. Apollo set several major human spaceflight milestones . It stands alone in sending crewed missions beyond low Earth orbit . Apollo 8
10944-432: The NASA report "Scientific Rationale Summaries for Apollo Candidate Lunar Exploration Landing Sites" from March 11, 1970, Apollo 18 is targeted for Copernicus, and Apollo 19 is assigned Hadley rille (the eventual landing site of Apollo 15). The Apollo 20 mission had been canceled two months before, but the report still suggested its target, Hyginus rille, possibly as an alternative Apollo 19 landing site. Harrison Schmitt
11115-591: The October Cuban Missile Crisis , and fear of Kennedy's support for Webb. NASA announced the selection of Grumman as the LEM contractor in November 1962. Space historian James Hansen concludes that: Without NASA's adoption of this stubbornly held minority opinion in 1962, the United States may still have reached the Moon, but almost certainly it would not have been accomplished by the end of
11286-815: The Office of Manned Space Flight (OMSF). On July 23, 1963, Webb announced Mueller's appointment as Deputy Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, to replace then Associate Administrator D. Brainerd Holmes on his retirement effective September 1. Under Webb's reorganization, the directors of the Manned Spacecraft Center ( Gilruth ), Marshall Space Flight Center ( von Braun ), and the Launch Operations Center ( Debus ) reported to Mueller. Based on his industry experience on Air Force missile projects, Mueller realized some skilled managers could be found among high-ranking officers in
11457-533: The SM's main engine (the Service Propulsion System or SPS) to return before reaching the Moon. However, the accident could have damaged the SPS, and the fuel cells would have to last at least another hour to meet its power requirements, so Kranz instead decided on a longer route: the spacecraft would swing around the Moon before heading back to Earth. Apollo 13 was on the hybrid trajectory which
11628-467: The Saturn V production to the original 15. After NASA Deputy Administrator George M. Low announced that the final three Moon landings were rescheduled for 1973 and 1974, following the three planned Skylab missions, Chief Astronaut Deke Slayton moved Lind to Apollo Applications, stating that "with the cancellation of 20, I could see I just wasn't going to have a flight for him". Another lunar landing
11799-454: The Saturn V. The Saturn IB could send over 40,000 pounds (18,100 kg) into low Earth orbit, sufficient for a partially fueled CSM or the LM. Saturn IB launch vehicles and flights were designated with an AS-200 series number, "AS" indicating "Apollo Saturn" and the "2" indicating the second member of the Saturn rocket family. Saturn V launch vehicles and flights were designated with an AS-500 series number, "AS" indicating "Apollo Saturn" and
11970-518: The Soviet Union and the United States due to the inaction of President Eisenhower. Beyond military power, Kennedy used aerospace technology as a symbol of national prestige, pledging to make the US not "first but, first and, first if, but first period". Despite Kennedy's rhetoric, he did not immediately come to a decision on the status of the Apollo program once he became president. He knew little about
12141-627: The Spacecraft–LM Adapter, numbered as SLA-16, which housed the lunar module (LM) during the first hours of the mission. The LM stages, CM and service module (SM) were received at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in June 1969; the portions of the Saturn ;V were received in June and July. Thereafter, testing and assembly proceeded, culminating with the rollout of the launch vehicle, with the spacecraft atop it, on December 15, 1969. Apollo 13
12312-666: The amount of hover time available to the astronauts as the missions headed into rougher terrain. The plan was to devote the first of the two four-hour lunar surface extravehicular activities (EVAs) to setting up the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP) group of scientific instruments; during the second, Lovell and Haise would investigate Cone crater , near the planned landing site. The two astronauts wore their spacesuits for some 20 walk-throughs of EVA procedures, including sample gathering and use of tools and other equipment. They flew in
12483-480: The astronauts walked on the Moon were demonstrated by Haise during Apollo 13's final television broadcast before the accident. Apollo 13's primary mission objectives were to: "Perform selenological inspection, survey, and sampling of materials in a preselected region of the Fra Mauro Formation. Deploy and activate an Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package. Develop man's capability to work in
12654-442: The case of Apollo 18 the crew was probably the Apollo 15 backup crew: When Apollo 18 was canceled, Schmitt was moved up to Apollo 17 under pressure from the scientific community, replacing Joe Engle . Schmitt, a geologist, became the twelfth man and the only professional scientist to walk on the Moon. Slayton's intention for the Apollo 19 crew was the original (prior to cancellation) Apollo 16 backup crew: For Apollo 20 there
12825-472: The center was conducted by Kurt H. Debus , a member of Wernher von Braun 's original V-2 rocket engineering team. Debus was named the LOC's first Director. Construction began in November 1962. Following Kennedy's death , President Johnson issued an executive order on November 29, 1963, to rename the LOC and Cape Canaveral in honor of Kennedy. The LOC included Launch Complex 39 , a Launch Control Center , and
12996-426: The clear goal of a crewed landing replacing the more nebulous goals of space stations and circumlunar flights, NASA decided that, in order to make progress quickly, it would discard the feasibility study designs of Convair, GE, and Martin, and proceed with Faget's command and service module design. The mission module was determined to be useful only as an extra room, and therefore unnecessary. They used Faget's design as
13167-400: The contents of both of the SM's oxygen tanks to space. Without oxygen, needed for breathing and for generating electric power, the SM's propulsion and life support systems could not operate. The CM's systems had to be shut down to conserve its remaining resources for reentry, forcing the crew to transfer to the LM as a lifeboat. With the lunar landing canceled, mission controllers worked to bring
13338-449: The contract to build the CSM, and also the second stage of the Saturn V launch vehicle for NASA. Because the CSM design was started early before the selection of lunar orbit rendezvous, the service propulsion engine was sized to lift the CSM off the Moon, and thus was oversized to about twice the thrust required for translunar flight. Also, there was no provision for docking with the lunar module. A 1964 program definition study concluded that
13509-432: The crew home alive. Although the LM was designed to support two men on the lunar surface for two days, Mission Control in Houston improvised new procedures so it could support three men for four days. The crew experienced great hardship, caused by limited power, a chilly and wet cabin and a shortage of potable water . There was a critical need to adapt the CM's cartridges for the carbon dioxide scrubber system to work in
13680-416: The crew members. The astronauts of Apollo 11 had minimal time for geology training, with only six months between crew assignment and launch; higher priorities took much of their time. Apollo 12 saw more such training, including practice in the field, using a CAPCOM and a simulated backroom of scientists, to whom the astronauts had to describe what they saw. Scientist-astronaut Harrison Schmitt saw that there
13851-425: The entire crew during a prelaunch test. After the first successful landing, sufficient flight hardware remained for nine follow-on landings with a plan for extended lunar geological and astrophysical exploration. Budget cuts forced the cancellation of three of these. Five of the remaining six missions achieved successful landings, but the Apollo 13 landing had to be aborted after an oxygen tank exploded en route to
14022-416: The excitement of Apollo 11, the general public grew apathetic towards the space program and Congress continued to cut NASA's budget; Apollo 20 was canceled. Despite the successful lunar landing, the missions were considered so risky that astronauts could not afford life insurance to provide for their families if they died in space. Even before the first U.S. astronaut entered space in 1961, planning for
14193-691: The fans, and after a few seconds turned them off again. Ninety-five seconds after Swigert activated those switches, the astronauts heard a "pretty large bang", accompanied by fluctuations in electrical power and the firing of the attitude control thrusters. Communications and telemetry to Earth were lost for 1.8 seconds, until the system automatically corrected by switching the high-gain S-band antenna, used for translunar communications, from narrow-beam to wide-beam mode. The accident happened at 55:54:53 (03:08 UTC on April 14, 10:08 PM EST, April 13). Swigert reported 26 seconds later, "Okay, Houston, we've had
14364-444: The final hours of the mission, but the remaining fuel cell, already starved for oxygen, was drawing from the surge tank. Kranz ordered the surge tank isolated, saving its oxygen, but this meant that the remaining fuel cell would die within two hours, as the oxygen in tank 1 was consumed or leaked away. The volume surrounding the spacecraft was filled with myriad small bits of debris from the accident, complicating any efforts to use
14535-445: The first Block II Command Module CM-101, as Grissom's crew were preparing for a February 1967 launch. Then, on January 27, 1967, Grissom, White, and Chaffee were killed in a flash fire in their spacecraft cabin during a test on the launch pad, interrupting the program for 19 months to identify and fix the root causes of numerous safety problems. This forced cancellation of plans to fly any crewed Block I spacecraft, and effectively forced
14706-463: The first human landing in July 1969, after which he returned to Air Force duty. Charles Fishman, in One Giant Leap , estimated the number of people and organizations involved into the Apollo program as "410,000 men and women at some 20,000 different companies contributed to the effort". Once Kennedy had defined a goal, the Apollo mission planners were faced with the challenge of designing
14877-529: The first landing with the sixth Saturn V, leaving nine for follow-on landings. The following landing sites were chosen (see clarification below) for these missions, planned to occur at intervals of approximately four months through July 1972. This list of landing sites was not compiled by the Apollo Site Selection Board (ASSB), or its various sub-groups, which made the actual landing site selections one to two flights in advance. This list
15048-441: The first men on the Moon in 1969. It was first conceived in 1960 during President Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration as a three-person spacecraft to follow the one-person Project Mercury , which put the first Americans in space. Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy 's national goal for the 1960s of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" in an address to Congress on May 25, 1961. It
15219-485: The first person to fly in space, reinforcing American fears about being left behind in a technological competition with the Soviet Union. At a meeting of the US House Committee on Science and Astronautics one day after Gagarin's flight, many congressmen pledged their support for a crash program aimed at ensuring that America would catch up. Kennedy was circumspect in his response to the news, refusing to make
15390-421: The first stage live, carrying dummy upper stages filled with water. The first flight with a live S-IV was launched from LC-37. This was followed by five launches of boilerplate CSMs (designated AS-101 through AS-105 ) into orbit in 1964 and 1965. The last three of these further supported the Apollo program by also carrying Pegasus satellites, which verified the safety of the translunar environment by measuring
15561-419: The flag on the airless Moon was improved from Apollo 12's. For the first time, red stripes were placed on the helmet, arms and legs of the commander's A7L spacesuit. This was done as, after Apollo 11, those reviewing the images taken had trouble distinguishing Armstrong from Aldrin, but the change was approved too late for Apollo 12. New drink bags that attached inside the helmets and were to be sipped from as
15732-445: The frequency and severity of micrometeorite impacts. In September 1962, NASA planned to launch four crewed CSM flights on the Saturn I from late 1965 through 1966, concurrent with Project Gemini. The 22,500-pound (10,200 kg) payload capacity would have severely limited the systems which could be included, so the decision was made in October 1963 to use the uprated Saturn IB for all crewed Earth orbital flights. The Saturn IB
15903-503: The furthest distance from Earth by a crewed spacecraft: 400,171 kilometers (248,655 mi) from Earth at 7:21 pm EST, April 14 (00:21:00 UTC April 15). While preparing for the burn, the crew was told that the S-IVB had impacted the Moon as planned, leading Lovell to quip, "Well, at least something worked on this flight." Kranz's White team of mission controllers, who had spent most of their time supporting other teams and developing
16074-428: The geology planning for Apollo 13. Farouk El-Baz oversaw the training of Mattingly and his backup, Swigert, which involved describing and photographing simulated lunar landmarks from airplanes. El-Baz had all three prime crew astronauts describe geologic features they saw during their flights between Houston and KSC; Mattingly's enthusiasm caused other astronauts, such as Apollo 14's CMP, Roosa, to seek out El-Baz as
16245-588: The ground devised a way to bridge the gap, using plastic covers ripped from procedure manuals, duct tape, and other items available on the spacecraft. NASA engineers referred to the improvised device as "the mailbox". The procedure for building the device was read to the crew by CAPCOM Joseph Kerwin over the course of an hour, and was built by Swigert and Haise; carbon dioxide levels began dropping immediately. Lovell later described this improvisation as "a fine example of cooperation between ground and space". The CSM's electricity came from fuel cells that produced water as
16416-508: The heavy lift-class Saturn launch vehicles , which would be required for Apollo. It became clear that managing the Apollo program would exceed the capabilities of Robert R. Gilruth 's Space Task Group , which had been directing the nation's crewed space program from NASA's Langley Research Center . So Gilruth was given authority to grow his organization into a new NASA center, the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC). A site
16587-458: The impact, after jettison, of the ascent stage of Apollo 13's LM, an object of known mass and velocity impacting at a known location. Other ALSEP experiments on Apollo 13 included a Heat Flow Experiment (HFE), which would involve drilling two holes 3.0 metres (10 ft) deep. This was Haise's responsibility; he was also to drill a third hole of that depth for a core sample. A Charged Particle Lunar Environment Experiment (CPLEE) measured
16758-488: The important weight reductions that were offered by the LOR approach. Throughout 1960 and 1961, Houbolt campaigned for the recognition of LOR as a viable and practical option. Bypassing the NASA hierarchy, he sent a series of memos and reports on the issue to Associate Administrator Robert Seamans; while acknowledging that he spoke "somewhat as a voice in the wilderness", Houbolt pleaded that LOR should not be discounted in studies of
16929-496: The initial design should be continued as Block I which would be used for early testing, while Block II, the actual lunar spacecraft, would incorporate the docking equipment and take advantage of the lessons learned in Block I development. The Apollo Lunar Module (LM) was designed to descend from lunar orbit to land two astronauts on the Moon and take them back to orbit to rendezvous with the command module. Not designed to fly through
17100-613: The launched Skylab. Of the remaining vehicles, two are on display, and the rest were scrapped. Any surplus Rocketdyne H-1 first stage engines were rebranded as the Rocketdyne RS-27 engine for usage on active launch vehicles of the time, such as those of the Delta 2000 Series in 1974. Likewise, the canceled flights' CSMs and LMs went either unused or were used for other missions: [REDACTED] This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of
17271-513: The light of knowledge to all people. The mission motto, Ex luna, scientia ("From the Moon, knowledge"), appears. In choosing it, Lovell adapted the motto of his alma mater, the Naval Academy, Ex scientia, tridens ("From knowledge, sea power"). On the patch, the mission number appeared in Roman numerals as Apollo XIII. It did not have to be modified after Swigert replaced Mattingly, as it
17442-471: The limited payload capacity of the Saturn I compared to the uprated Saturn IB would have severely limited the systems carried, and thus the testing value of these flights. Therefore, NASA canceled these flights in October 1963, and replaced them with two crewed Saturn IB missions, designated AS-204 and AS-205. These would be followed by the first uncrewed flight of the Lunar Module (LM) on AS-206, then
17613-450: The long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. At the time of Kennedy's proposal, only one American had flown in space—less than a month earlier—and NASA had not yet sent an astronaut into orbit. Even some NASA employees doubted whether Kennedy's ambitious goal could be met. By 1963, Kennedy even came close to agreeing to a joint US-USSR Moon mission, to eliminate duplication of effort. With
17784-526: The lunar environment. Obtain photographs of candidate exploration sites." The astronauts were also to accomplish other photographic objectives, including of the Gegenschein from lunar orbit, and of the Moon itself on the journey back to Earth. Some of this photography was to be performed by Swigert as Lovell and Haise walked on the Moon. Swigert was also to take photographs of the Lagrangian points of
17955-422: The lunar equator; a hybrid trajectory, which could be started at any point after TLI, allowed sites with higher latitudes, such as Fra Mauro, to be reached. Communications were enlivened when Swigert realized that in the last-minute rush, he had omitted to file his federal income tax return (due April 15), and amid laughter from mission controllers, asked how he could get an extension. He was found to be entitled to
18126-510: The lunar flights. On the extended lunar missions, an orbital scientific instrument package was carried. The service module was discarded just before reentry. The module was 24.6 feet (7.5 m) long and 12.83 feet (3.91 m) in diameter. The initial lunar flight version weighed approximately 51,300 pounds (23,300 kg) fully fueled, while a later version designed to carry a lunar orbit scientific instrument package weighed just over 54,000 pounds (24,000 kg). North American Aviation won
18297-545: The mission to reflect the correct crew, and the absence of a lunar landing date. The Saturn V rocket used to carry Apollo 13 to the Moon was numbered SA-508, and was almost identical to those used on Apollo 8 through 12. Including the spacecraft, the rocket weighed in at 2,949,136 kilograms (6,501,733 lb). The S-IC first stage's engines were rated to generate 440,000 newtons (100,000 lbf) less total thrust than Apollo 12's, though they remained within specifications. To keep its liquid hydrogen propellent cold,
18468-444: The mission's ten-day planned duration. Each member of the prime crew spent over 400 hours in simulators of the CM and (for Lovell and Haise) of the LM at KSC and at Houston, some of which involved the flight controllers at Mission Control. Flight controllers participated in many simulations of problems with the spacecraft in flight, which taught them how to react in an emergency. Specialized simulators at other locations were also used by
18639-504: The mission. The crew settled in for the three-day trip to Fra Mauro. At 30:40:50 into the mission, with the TV camera running, the crew performed a burn to place Apollo 13 on a hybrid trajectory. The departure from a free-return trajectory meant that if no further burns were performed, Apollo 13 would miss Earth on its return trajectory, rather than intercept it, as with a free return. A free return trajectory could only reach sites near
18810-475: The one star available whose position could not be obscured – the Sun. Houston also informed them that the Moon would be centered in the commander's window of the LM as they made the burn, which was almost perfect – less than 0.3 meters (1 foot) per second off. The burn, at 79:27:38.95, lasted four minutes and 23 seconds. The crew then shut down most LM systems to conserve consumables. The LM carried enough oxygen, but that still left
18981-450: The opportunity to walk again on the Moon as commanders. During the early Apollo missions he used a rotation system of assigning a crew as backup and then, three missions later, as the prime crew; however, by the later Apollo flights, this system was used less frequently as astronauts left the program, Slayton wanted to give rookies a chance, and astronauts did not want to take backup positions that no longer could lead to prime-crew spots. In
19152-483: The press, during a presentation by von Braun. Webb jumped in and defended von Braun, until Kennedy ended the squabble by stating that the matter was "still subject to final review". Webb held firm and issued a request for proposal to candidate Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) contractors. Wiesner finally relented, unwilling to settle the dispute once and for all in Kennedy's office, because of the President's involvement with
19323-454: The prime crew had to be grounded, the remaining crew would be replaced as well, and the backup crew substituted, but Duke's illness ruled this out, so two days before launch, Mattingly was replaced by Swigert. Mattingly never developed rubella and later flew on Apollo 16 . For Apollo, a third crew of astronauts, known as the support crew, was designated in addition to the prime and backup crews used on projects Mercury and Gemini. Slayton created
19494-419: The problem of removing carbon dioxide , which was absorbed by canisters of lithium hydroxide pellets. The LM's stock of canisters, meant to accommodate two astronauts for 45 hours on the Moon, was not enough to support three astronauts for the return journey to Earth. The CM had enough canisters, but they were of a different shape and size to the LM's, hence unable to be used in the LM's equipment. Engineers on
19665-487: The procedures urgently needed to get the astronauts home, took their consoles for the PC+2 procedure. Normally, the accuracy of such a burn could be assured by checking the alignment Lovell had transferred to the LM's computer against the position of one of the stars astronauts used for navigation, but the light glinting off the many pieces of debris accompanying the spacecraft made that impractical. The astronauts accordingly used
19836-662: The program, Apollo 17 LMP Schmitt aggressively lobbied for a crewed landing on the far side of the Moon , targeting the far side Tsiolkovskiy crater . Schmitt's ambitious proposal included the launch into lunar orbit of special communications satellites based on the existing TIROS satellites to allow contact with the astronauts during their powered descent and lunar surface operations. NASA administrators rejected these plans because of lack of funding and added risk. In August 1971, President Richard Nixon proposed to cancel all remaining lunar landings (Apollo 16 and 17). His Office of Management and Budget Deputy Director Caspar Weinberger
20007-556: The project was overseen by Thomas J. Kelly . Before the Apollo program began, Wernher von Braun and his team of rocket engineers had started work on plans for very large launch vehicles, the Saturn series , and the even larger Nova series. In the midst of these plans, von Braun was transferred from the Army to NASA and was made Director of the Marshall Space Flight Center. The initial direct ascent plan to send
20178-575: The protons and electrons of solar origin reaching the Moon. The package also included a Lunar Atmosphere Detector (LAD) and a Dust Detector, to measure the accumulation of debris. The Heat Flow Experiment and the CPLEE were flown for the first time on Apollo 13; the other experiments had been flown before. To power the ALSEP, the SNAP-27 radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) was flown. Developed by
20349-519: The question. Seamans's establishment of an ad hoc committee headed by his special technical assistant Nicholas E. Golovin in July 1961, to recommend a launch vehicle to be used in the Apollo program, represented a turning point in NASA's mission mode decision. This committee recognized that the chosen mode was an important part of the launch vehicle choice, and recommended in favor of a hybrid EOR-LOR mode. Its consideration of LOR—as well as Houbolt's ceaseless work—played an important role in publicizing
20520-524: The senior individual present, Manned Spaceflight Center director Robert R. Gilruth , decided on a burn using the DPS, that would save 12 hours and land Apollo 13 in the Pacific. This "PC+2" burn would take place two hours after pericynthion , the closest approach to the Moon. At pericynthion, Apollo 13 set the record (per the Guinness Book of World Records ), which still stands, for
20691-400: The space station, cislunar, and lunar landing missions. Once Kennedy's Moon landing goal became official, detailed design began of a command and service module (CSM) in which the crew would spend the entire direct-ascent mission and lift off from the lunar surface for the return trip, after being soft-landed by a larger landing propulsion module. The final choice of lunar orbit rendezvous changed
20862-405: The spacecraft, was in communication via voice loop to specialists in a Staff Support Room (or "back room"), who focused on specific spacecraft systems. Apollo 13 was to be the second H mission , meant to demonstrate precision lunar landings and explore specific sites on the Moon. With Kennedy's goal accomplished by Apollo 11, and Apollo 12 demonstrating that the astronauts could perform
21033-452: The specification for another competition for spacecraft procurement bids in October 1961. On November 28, 1961, it was announced that North American Aviation had won the contract, although its bid was not rated as good as the Martin proposal. Webb, Dryden and Robert Seamans chose it in preference due to North American's longer association with NASA and its predecessor . Landing humans on
21204-431: The stars for navigation. The mission's goal became simply getting the astronauts back to Earth alive. The lunar module had charged batteries and full oxygen tanks for use on the lunar surface, so Kranz directed that the astronauts power up the LM and use it as a "lifeboat" – a scenario anticipated but considered unlikely. Procedures for using the LM in this way had been developed by LM flight controllers after
21375-428: The status of the fuel cells and found that two of them were dead. Mission rules forbade entering lunar orbit unless all fuel cells were operational. In the minutes after the accident, there were several unusual readings, showing that tank 2 was empty and tank 1's pressure slowly falling, that the computer on the spacecraft had reset and that the high-gain antenna was not working. Liebergot initially missed
21546-813: The support crews because James McDivitt , who would command Apollo 9 , believed that, with preparation going on in facilities across the US, meetings that needed a member of the flight crew would be missed. Support crew members were to assist as directed by the mission commander. Usually low in seniority, they assembled the mission's rules, flight plan , and checklists, and kept them updated; for Apollo 13, they were Vance D. Brand , Jack Lousma and either William Pogue or Joseph Kerwin . For Apollo 13, flight directors were Gene Kranz , White team (the lead flight director); Glynn Lunney , Black team; Milton Windler , Maroon team and Gerry Griffin , Gold team. The CAPCOMs (the person in Mission Control, during
21717-425: The systems of Apollo 11's LM, once jettisoned in lunar orbit, had continued to operate for seven to eight hours even with the water cut off. In the end, Apollo 13 returned to Earth with 12.8 kilograms (28.2 lb) of water remaining. The crew's ration was 0.2 liters (6.8 fl oz) of water per person per day; the three astronauts lost a total of 14 kilograms (31 lb) among them, and Haise developed
21888-427: The technical details of the space program, and was put off by the massive financial commitment required by a crewed Moon landing. When Kennedy's newly appointed NASA Administrator James E. Webb requested a 30 percent budget increase for his agency, Kennedy supported an acceleration of NASA's large booster program but deferred a decision on the broader issue. On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became
22059-536: The third crewed mission, designated AS-207/208, would use AS-207 to launch the crew in an improved Block II CSM, which would rendezvous and dock with the LM launched uncrewed on AS-208. The crew selected on March 21, 1966, for AS-204 consisted of Command Pilot Virgil "Gus" Grissom , Senior Pilot Ed White , and Pilot Roger Chaffee , who named their mission Apollo 1 . AS-205 was to be named Apollo 2, and AS-207/208 would be Apollo 3. The AS-205 crew were Wally Schirra , Donn Eisele and Walter Cunningham . However, AS-205
22230-940: The three-person Apollo command and service module directly to the lunar surface, on top of a large descent rocket stage, would require a Nova-class launcher, with a lunar payload capability of over 180,000 pounds (82,000 kg). The June 11, 1962, decision to use lunar orbit rendezvous enabled the Saturn V to replace the Nova, and the MSFC proceeded to develop the Saturn rocket family for Apollo. Since Apollo, like Mercury, used more than one launch vehicle for space missions, NASA used spacecraft-launch vehicle combination series numbers: AS-10x for Saturn I, AS-20x for Saturn IB, and AS-50x for Saturn V (compare Mercury-Redstone 3 , Mercury-Atlas 6 ) to designate and plan all missions, rather than numbering them sequentially as in Project Gemini. This
22401-456: The time of Apollo 13, Lovell was the NASA astronaut with the most time in space, with 572 hours over the three missions. Jack Swigert , the command module pilot (CMP), was 38 years old and held a B.S. in mechanical engineering and an M.S. in aerospace science; he had served in the Air Force and in state Air National Guards and was an engineering test pilot before being selected for
22572-473: The travel time and to move splashdown to the Pacific Ocean , where the main recovery forces were located. One option would shave 36 hours off the return time, but required jettisoning the SM; this would expose the CM's heat shield to space during the return journey, something for which it had not been designed. The FIDOs also proposed other solutions. After a meeting involving NASA officials and engineers,
22743-424: The use of potentially combustible items inside the tank; this was done for Apollo 14 . The story of Apollo 13 has been dramatized several times, most notably in the 1995 film Apollo 13 based on Lost Moon , the 1994 memoir co-authored by Lovell – and an episode of the 1998 miniseries From the Earth to the Moon . In 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy challenged his nation to land an astronaut on
22914-430: The workability of the approach. In late 1961 and early 1962, members of the Manned Spacecraft Center began to come around to support LOR, including the newly hired deputy director of the Office of Manned Space Flight, Joseph Shea , who became a champion of LOR. The engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), who were heavily invested in direct ascent, took longer to become convinced of its merits, but their conversion
23085-404: The worrying signs from tank 2 following the stir, as he was focusing on tank 1, believing that its reading would be a good guide to what was present in tank 2, as did controllers supporting him in the "back room". When Kranz questioned Liebergot on this, he initially responded that there might be false readings due to an instrumentation problem; he was often teased about that in
23256-421: The years to come. Lovell, looking out the window, reported "a gas of some sort" venting into space, making it clear that there was a serious problem. Since the fuel cells needed oxygen to operate, when Oxygen Tank 1 ran dry, the remaining fuel cell would shut down, meaning the CSM's only significant sources of power and oxygen would be the CM's batteries and its oxygen "surge tank". These would be needed for
23427-482: Was 11.42 feet (3.48 m) tall, 12.83 feet (3.91 m) in diameter, and weighed approximately 12,250 pounds (5,560 kg). A cylindrical service module (SM) supported the command module, with a service propulsion engine and an RCS with propellants, and a fuel cell power generation system with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen reactants. A high-gain S-band antenna was used for long-distance communications on
23598-546: Was 42 years old at the time of the spaceflight. He was a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and had been a naval aviator and test pilot before being selected for the second group of astronauts in 1962; he flew with Frank Borman in Gemini ;7 in 1965 and Buzz Aldrin in Gemini 12 the following year before flying in Apollo 8 in 1968, the first spacecraft to orbit the Moon. At
23769-440: Was a reason why NASA canceled Apollo 18, 19, and 20. Slayton was the director of Flight Crew Operations and effectively chose the crews for the flights. He did not intend to give astronauts two lunar landing commands but, according to historian Michael Cassutt , as late as the summer of 1969—when 10 landings were still scheduled—Slayton planned to give Lunar Module pilots Fred Haise , Edgar Mitchell , and James Irwin
23940-402: Was also decisive in who would be the first man to walk on the Moon. Pete Conrad was backup commander for McDivitt's crew, and by the process of crew rotation, would have been in line for commander of Apollo 11 three flights later. Neil Armstrong got this honor by virtue of being Borman's backup commander. NASA contracted to have 15 flight-worthy Saturn V rockets produced. Apollo 11 achieved
24111-533: Was also held as a backup CSM for the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project . Skylab 5 would have been a short 20-day mission to conduct more scientific experiments and boost Skylab into a higher orbit. Brand, Lind, and William B. Lenoir (science pilot) would have been the crew. Two complete Saturn V rockets went unused after the Apollo program, SA-514 and SA-515, as well as the third stage of the SA-513. SA-513
24282-567: Was an upgraded version of the Saturn I. The S-IB first stage increased the thrust to 1,600,000 pounds-force (7,120 kN) by uprating the H-1 engine. The second stage replaced the S-IV with the S-IVB-200 , powered by a single J-2 engine burning liquid hydrogen fuel with LOX, to produce 200,000 pounds-force (890 kN ) of thrust. A restartable version of the S-IVB was used as the third stage of
24453-497: Was announced by Wernher von Braun at a briefing on June 7, 1962. But even after NASA reached internal agreement, it was far from smooth sailing. Kennedy's science advisor Jerome Wiesner , who had expressed his opposition to human spaceflight to Kennedy before the President took office, and had opposed the decision to land people on the Moon, hired Golovin, who had left NASA, to chair his own "Space Vehicle Panel", ostensibly to monitor, but actually to second-guess NASA's decisions on
24624-458: Was caused by severe pogo oscillations . Starting with Apollo 10, the vehicle's guidance system was designed to shut the engine down in response to chamber pressure excursions. Pogo oscillations had occurred on Titan rockets (used during the Gemini program ) and on previous Apollo missions, but on Apollo 13 they were amplified by an interaction with turbopump cavitation . A fix to prevent pogo
24795-606: Was changed by the time human flights began. Since Apollo, like Mercury, would require a launch escape system (LES) in case of a launch failure, a relatively small rocket was required for qualification flight testing of this system. A rocket bigger than the Little Joe used by Mercury would be required, so the Little Joe II was built by General Dynamics / Convair . After an August 1963 qualification test flight , four LES test flights ( A-001 through 004 ) were made at
24966-546: Was chosen in Houston , Texas, on land donated by Rice University , and Administrator Webb announced the conversion on September 19, 1961. It was also clear NASA would soon outgrow its practice of controlling missions from its Cape Canaveral Air Force Station launch facilities in Florida, so a new Mission Control Center would be included in the MSC. In September 1962, by which time two Project Mercury astronauts had orbited
25137-518: Was compiled by a consulting firm, and was only a set of planning tools and suggestions. The ASSB would have selected actual sites for the cancelled Apollo missions, and since these missions never went through the site selection process, the list presented here did not reflect actual planning of the Apollo Program Office or NASA HQ. As referenced in "To A Rocky Moon," by Donald Wilhelms. The last five missions were J-class missions using
25308-512: Was completing the shutdown of the LM after testing its systems while Lovell stowed the TV camera. Jack Lousma , the CAPCOM , sent minor instructions to Swigert, including changing the attitude of the craft to facilitate photography of Comet Bennett . The pressure sensor in one of the SM's oxygen tanks had earlier appeared to be malfunctioning, so Sy Liebergot (the EECOM , in charge of monitoring
25479-463: Was in Lovell's mind when he chose the call sign Aquarius for the lunar module, taken from Aquarius , the bringer of water. Some in the media erroneously reported that the call sign was taken from a song by that name from the musical Hair . The command module's call sign, Odyssey , was chosen not only for its Homeric association but to refer to the recent film, 2001: A Space Odyssey , based on
25650-401: Was later deemed unnecessary and officially canceled on December 22, 1966. Schirra's crew then became the backup for Grissom's crew, and the crewed LM mission became the second crewed mission, redesignated AS-205/208 and crewed by the original backup for Grissom's crew: Command Pilot Jim McDivitt , CSM Pilot David Scott and LM Pilot Rusty Schweickart . They immediately began their training in
25821-505: Was likely to be the first scientist to the Moon on Apollo 18 or 19, with Don L. Lind the second. On January 4, 1970, NASA announced the cancellation of Apollo 20 so that its Saturn V launch rocket could be used to launch the Skylab space station as a "dry workshop" (assembled on the ground), instead of constructing it as a "wet workshop" from a spent S-IVB upper stage of a Saturn IB launch vehicle. Also, budget restrictions had limited
25992-410: Was limited enthusiasm for geology field trips. Believing an inspirational teacher was needed, Schmitt arranged for Lovell and Haise to meet his old professor, Caltech 's Lee Silver . The two astronauts, and backups Young and Duke, went on a field trip with Silver at their own time and expense. At the end of their week together, Lovell made Silver their geology mentor, who would be extensively involved in
26163-475: Was limited since none of the television networks were carrying the broadcast, forcing Marilyn Lovell (Jim Lovell's wife) to go to the VIP room at Mission Control if she wanted to watch her husband and his crewmates. About six and a half minutes after the TV broadcast – approaching 56:00:00 – Apollo 13 was about 180,000 nautical miles (210,000 mi; 330,000 km) from Earth. Haise
26334-561: Was lost in April 1970 when Apollo 13 had its in-flight failure, and the Fra Mauro landing site was reassigned to Apollo 14 . Then on September 2, 1970, NASA announced it was canceling the H4 and J4 missions after more budget cuts. Skylab was postponed to 1973, and the final landing schedule became: At the time, 35 of NASA's 49 active astronauts were waiting for a mission. In the final days of
26505-477: Was named after Apollo , the Greek god of light, music, and the Sun, by NASA manager Abe Silverstein , who later said, "I was naming the spacecraft like I'd name my baby." Silverstein chose the name at home one evening, early in 1960, because he felt "Apollo riding his chariot across the Sun was appropriate to the grand scale of the proposed program". The context of this was that the program focused at its beginning mainly on developing an advanced crewed spacecraft,
26676-551: Was near Fra Mauro crater ; the Fra Mauro formation was believed to contain much material spattered by the impact that had filled the Imbrium basin early in the Moon's history. Dating it would provide information not only about the Moon, but about the Earth's early history. Such material was likely to be available at Cone crater, a site where an impact was believed to have drilled deep into the lunar regolith . Apollo 11 had left
26847-474: Was opposed to this and persuaded Nixon to keep the remaining Moon missions, but recommended that if such cancellation did happen, it should be "on the ground that Apollo 15 was so successful in gathering needed data that we can now shift, sooner than previously expected, to the Space Shuttle , Grand Tour , NERVA , etc". John Young , who flew on Apollo 10 and 16, believed that fear of losing astronauts
27018-502: Was originally scheduled for launch on March 12, 1970, but that January NASA announced the mission would be postponed until April 11, both to allow more time for planning and to spread the Apollo missions over a longer period. The plan was to have two Apollo flights per year and was in response to budgetary constraints that had recently seen the cancellation of Apollo 20. The Apollo 13 prime crew undertook over 1,000 hours of mission-specific training, more than five hours for every hour of
27189-605: Was planned as an elliptical medium Earth orbit test of the operational LM with the CSM in a simulated lunar mission to an apogee of 4,600 miles (7,400 km), to be commanded by Frank Borman in March 1969. Of all the components of the Apollo system, the LM had the most technical issues. It was behind schedule and when LM-3 was shipped to the Kennedy Space Center in June 1968, over 101 separate defects were discovered. Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation , which
27360-475: Was planned but canceled as unnecessary. The first development Lunar Module, LM-1 was flown uncrewed ( B mission) as Apollo 5 . A second uncrewed test was planned using LM-2 but was canceled as unnecessary. LM-2 was retrofitted to look like a production LM which would land men on the Moon and was donated to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum , where it is currently on display as
27531-530: Was ready for the mission, but schedule pressure did not permit the hardware's integration into the Apollo ;13 vehicle. A post-flight investigation revealed the engine was one cycle away from catastrophic failure. The four outboard engines and the S-IVB third stage burned longer to compensate, and the vehicle achieved very close to the planned circular 190 kilometers (100 nmi) parking orbit , followed by
27702-549: Was rolled out to Launch Complex 39B on Saturn IB SA-209 during the mission and prepared for a possible launch. Two astronauts, Brand (commander) and Lind (Command Module pilot), would have flown the CSM to retrieve the three crew members. The problem was fixed without requiring a rescue flight. CSM-119 was returned to the Vehicle Assembly Building and remained on standby until the Skylab program ended. CSM-119
27873-399: Was swapped with Shepard's. Swigert was originally CMP of Apollo 13's backup crew, with John Young as commander and Charles Duke as lunar module pilot. Seven days before launch, Duke contracted rubella from his son's friend. This exposed both the prime and backup crews, who trained together. Of the five, only Mattingly was not immune through prior exposure. Normally, if any member of
28044-662: Was the first crewed spacecraft to orbit another celestial body, and Apollo 11 was the first crewed spacecraft to land humans on one. Overall, the Apollo program returned 842 pounds (382 kg) of lunar rocks and soil to Earth, greatly contributing to the understanding of the Moon's composition and geological history. The program laid the foundation for NASA's subsequent human spaceflight capability and funded construction of its Johnson Space Center and Kennedy Space Center . Apollo also spurred advances in many areas of technology incidental to rocketry and human spaceflight, including avionics , telecommunications, and computers. The program
28215-413: Was the launch vehicle originally planned for the Apollo 18 mission, which was instead used (without its third stage) to launch Skylab . Several Saturn IBs also remained unused and in storage at the end of the Apollo program. Three (SA-206, SA-207 and SA-208) were used for the crewed launches of the Skylab program, and SA-210 was used for the crewed ASTP flight. The second stage of SA-212 was rebuilt as
28386-638: Was the lead contractor for the LM predicted that the first man-rated LM, to be used for the D mission, would not be ready until at least February 1969, delaying the entire sequence. George Low , the manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office, proposed a solution in August 1968. Since the CSM would be ready three months before the Lunar Module, they could fly a CSM-only mission in December 1968. But instead of just repeating
28557-403: Was the only component of the Apollo spacecraft to survive without major configuration changes as the program evolved from the early Apollo study designs. Its exterior was covered with an ablative heat shield , and had its own reaction control system (RCS) engines to control its attitude and steer its atmospheric entry path. Parachutes were carried to slow its descent to splashdown. The module
28728-423: Was the third US human spaceflight program to fly, preceded by the two-person Project Gemini conceived in 1961 to extend spaceflight capability in support of Apollo. Kennedy's goal was accomplished on the Apollo 11 mission when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their Apollo Lunar Module (LM) on July 20, 1969, and walked on the lunar surface, while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in
28899-561: Was to take it to Fra Mauro; it now needed to be brought back to a free return. The LM's Descent Propulsion System (DPS), although not as powerful as the SPS, could do this, but new software for Mission Control's computers needed to be written by technicians as it had never been contemplated that the CSM/LM spacecraft would have to be maneuvered from the LM. As the CM was being shut down, Lovell copied down its guidance system's orientation information and performed hand calculations to transfer it to
29070-413: Was upgraded to 7,610,000 pounds-force (33,900 kN). The second and third stages burned liquid hydrogen; the third stage was a modified version of the S-IVB, with thrust increased to 230,000 pounds-force (1,020 kN) and capability to restart the engine for translunar injection after reaching a parking orbit . Apollo 20 Several planned missions of the Apollo crewed Moon landing program of
29241-425: Was visibly slower to clear the launch tower than earlier missions. The Apollo 13 spacecraft consisted of Command Module 109 and Service Module 109 (together CSM-109), called Odyssey , and Lunar Module 7 (LM-7), called Aquarius . Also considered part of the spacecraft was the launch escape system , which would propel the command module (CM) to safety in the event of a problem during liftoff, and
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