Description

Apollo 13 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 the Apollo 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.