page_title: Apollo 13
hierarchical_section_title: Apollo 13
caption_attribution_description: English: The actual Apollo 13 lunar landing mission prime crew from left to right are: Commander, James A. Lovell Jr., Command Module pilot, John L. Swigert Jr., and Lunar Module pilot, Fred W. Haise Jr. The original Command Module pilot for this mission was Thomas "Ken" Mattingly Jr., but due to exposure to German measles he was replaced by his backup, Command Module pilot, John L. "Jack" Swigert Jr.
context_page_description: Apollo 13 was the seventh mission of NASA's Project Apollo and the third manned lunar-lander mission. The flight was commanded by Jim Lovell. The other astronauts on board were Jack Swigert and Fred Haise.
  The craft was launched successfully toward the Moon, but two days after launch a faulty oxygen tank exploded, and the Service Module became damaged, causing a loss of oxygen and electrical power. There was a very large chance that the astronauts would die before they could return to Earth. They were very short of oxygen. Oxygen is not just used to breathe; on the Apollo spacecraft it was used in a device called a Fuel cell to generate electricity. So they conserved their remaining air by turning off almost all their electrical equipment, for example heaters. It became very cold in the spacecraft.
  In order to stay alive the astronauts also had to move into the Apollo Lunar Module and make it work as a sort of "lifeboat".
  When they approached the Earth they were not sure that their parachutes, needed to slow the Command Module down, would work. The parachutes were thrown out by small explosive charges that were fired by batteries.
context_section_description: Apollo 13 was the seventh mission of NASA's Project Apollo and the third manned lunar-lander mission. The flight was commanded by Jim Lovell.  The other astronauts on board were Jack Swigert and Fred Haise.
  The craft was launched successfully toward the Moon, but two days after launch a faulty oxygen tank exploded, and the Service Module became damaged, causing a loss of oxygen and electrical power. There was a very large chance that the astronauts would die before they could return to Earth. They were very short of oxygen. Oxygen is not just used to breathe; on the Apollo spacecraft it was used in a device called a Fuel cell to generate electricity. So they conserved their remaining air by turning off almost all their electrical equipment, for example heaters. It became very cold in the spacecraft.
  In order to stay alive the astronauts also had to move into the Apollo Lunar Module and make it work as a sort of "lifeboat".
  When they approached the Earth they were not sure that their parachutes, needed to slow the Command Module down, would work. The parachutes were thrown out by small explosive charges that were fired by batteries. The cold could have made the batteries fail, in which case the parachutes would not work and the Command Module would hit the ocean so fast that all aboard would be killed.
caption: Apollo program
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "808", "Image YResolution": "808", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "GIMP 2.6.8", "Image DateTime": "2011:03:27 02:36:13", "Image ExifOffset": "146", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "282", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8152", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "6462", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "5440"}