5 Critical Failures And 3 Heroic Lives: The Untold True Story Of What Happened To Apollo 13

The mission that failed to land on the Moon but succeeded in the history of human ingenuity remains one of NASA’s most compelling dramas. On April 11, 1970, the Apollo 13 crew launched with the goal of becoming the third mission to land on the lunar surface, but a catastrophic explosion just 56 hours into the flight turned their journey into a desperate race for survival 200,000 miles from Earth. The story of what happened to Apollo 13 is not just an account of a technical failure, but a testament to the "successful failure" that defined the spirit of Mission Control and the resilience of three astronauts. Today, the story has renewed poignancy. As of this writing in late 2025, the world mourns the recent passing of Commander Jim Lovell on August 7, 2025, at the age of 97, leaving Lunar Module Pilot Fred Haise as the last surviving member of the harrowing mission. This definitive, updated look reveals the precise technical cause of the near-fatal accident and the incredible, improvised solutions that brought the crew home.

The Apollo 13 Crew and Key Mission Control Personnel: A Biographical Profile

The story of Apollo 13 is inextricably linked to the men who flew the spacecraft and the legendary team on the ground who worked tirelessly to save them.

• James "Jim" Lovell Jr. (Commander)
  • Born: March 25, 1928, Cleveland, Ohio.
  • Death: August 7, 2025, Lake Forest, Illinois.
  • Career Highlights: Naval Aviator; Veteran of four spaceflights; First person to fly to the Moon twice (Apollo 8 and Apollo 13); Received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
  • Post-NASA: Authored the book *Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13*, which was the basis for the 1995 film *Apollo 13*.
• John "Jack" Swigert Jr. (Command Module Pilot)
  • Born: August 30, 1931, Denver, Colorado.
  • Death: December 27, 1982, Washington, D.C.
  • Career Highlights: Test Pilot; Mechanical and Aerospace Engineer; A last-minute replacement for Ken Mattingly due to Mattingly's exposure to rubella.
  • Post-NASA: Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982 but died of bone cancer before he could be sworn in.
• Fred W. Haise Jr. (Lunar Module Pilot)
  • Born: November 14, 1933, Biloxi, Mississippi.
  • Status: Last surviving crew member of Apollo 13.
  • Career Highlights: Test Pilot; Served as backup Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 8 and 11; Flew five Space Shuttle Approach and Landing Tests (ALT).
  • Post-NASA: Served as President of Northrop Grumman Technical Services (GTS) before retiring in 1996.
• Gene Kranz (Lead Flight Director)
  • Role: Known for his calm, decisive leadership and the famous phrase, "Failure is not an option."
• Ken Mattingly (Original CMP / Ground Support)
  • Role: Famously grounded before the mission, he played a crucial role in developing the power-up procedures for the Command Module *Odyssey* during re-entry.

The Catastrophic Technical Failure: What Really Caused the Explosion?

The iconic phrase, "Houston, we've had a problem," came at 9:08 p.m. EST on April 13, 1970, approximately 56 hours into the flight. The problem was an explosion that crippled the spacecraft, but the roots of the disaster began long before launch.

The Apollo 13 Review Board determined the cause was an electrically initiated fire in Oxygen Tank No. 2 located in the Service Module (SM). The tank was an older model that had been dropped during a handling incident two years prior, which went unnoticed but likely damaged the internal plumbing.

The critical failure occurred during a routine pre-flight test. To empty the tank for maintenance, technicians had to use the internal heaters. However, the tank’s thermostats were designed for 28-volt DC power, but the ground support equipment was running at 65-volt DC. This high voltage caused the thermostats to weld shut, turning the heater into a continuous oven.

For eight hours, the heater element cooked the tank's contents, raising the internal temperature to an estimated 1,000°F (540°C). This heat severely damaged the Teflon insulation surrounding the electrical wiring inside the tank. In space, when the crew performed a routine "cryo stir" of the oxygen tanks to check pressure, a spark from the exposed wire insulation ignited the pure liquid oxygen, causing a catastrophic rupture.

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5 Critical Challenges That Turned *Aquarius* Into a Lifeboat

Once the Service Module was crippled—losing all its oxygen and most of its electrical power—the mission’s objective shifted entirely to survival. The Lunar Module (LM) *Aquarius*, designed to support two men for two days on the Moon, became the lifeboat for three men for four days in transit back to Earth. This successful, improvised rescue required overcoming five major, life-threatening hurdles:

1. Power Scarcity and The Deep Freeze

The Service Module’s explosion had drained the main power supply. To conserve the limited battery power in the Command Module (CM) *Odyssey* for re-entry, the crew had to shut down nearly all systems. Temperatures inside the Lunar Module dropped to near-freezing, forcing the crew to endure extreme cold and dehydration. The power-up procedure for *Odyssey*—developed by Ken Mattingly and the ground team—was a massive risk, as no one knew if the cold batteries would successfully restart the complex system.

2. The Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Build-up

The most immediate threat was the rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2). The LM’s lithium hydroxide canisters (CO2 scrubbers) were designed for two people. The CM’s canisters were shaped differently—square—and could not fit into the LM’s round openings. This was the famous "square peg in a round hole" problem. Mission Control engineers, led by Gene Kranz, famously worked against the clock to devise an improvised solution using spare materials like plastic bags, cardboard, and duct tape, effectively saving the crew from CO2 poisoning.

3. Navigation and Trajectory Correction

The explosion knocked the spacecraft off its intended course. The crew had to perform a critical mid-course correction burn using the LM’s descent engine, relying on manual calculations and sighting the Earth's terminator line (the day-night boundary) against the stars for alignment. This maneuver, performed flawlessly by Jim Lovell and Fred Haise, was essential to ensure the spacecraft was on the correct trajectory for re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.

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4. The Passive Thermal Control (PTC)

To prevent one side of the spacecraft from overheating while the other froze, the crew had to manually place the crippled ship into a slow, constant rotation known as Passive Thermal Control (PTC), or the "BBQ Roll." This maneuver was crucial for distributing the Sun’s heat evenly across the hull, preventing structural damage and system failures.

5. The Harrowing Re-entry

The final challenge was the re-entry process. The Service Module was jettisoned, revealing the massive damage from the explosion. The LM *Aquarius* was then jettisoned. The crew, now freezing and exhausted, had to manually power up the Command Module *Odyssey* using the procedures developed by Mattingly. The success of the re-entry was not guaranteed, but after a tense four-minute radio blackout, the capsule successfully splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on April 17, 1970, marking the mission's dramatic conclusion as a "successful failure."