Apollo 13 Timeline

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On April 11th, 1970, James Lovell, John “Jack” Swigert, and Fred Haise left Earth for the moon in the Apollo 13 space shuttle. Just under the 56-hour mark into their journey, James, Jack and Fred faced a life threatening disaster when mission control asked Jack to stir the oxygen tanks. Stirring the oxygen tanks is designed to destratify them to give a better reading of what is left in the tanks. When Jack stirred the tanks the crew heard a loud bang, accompanied by power fluctuations and fire of attitude adjuster rockets. What followed was an 87-hour fight for life as mission control worked with the astronauts on a plan to get them back to Earth alive. The Apollo 13 mission timeline. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13#Review_board_report…show more content…
The Lunar Module only carried enough consumables for two people for a day and a half, and it need to sustain three people for four days. Power was very limited during this time because the crew needed to reserve power for re-entry so the Abort Guidance System was used to keep the shuttle on track, instead of the main guidance computer. As well all non-essential systems were shut off, like the heater, making the crews four-day journey very cold. The crew faced another problem when Carbon Dioxide levels were rising and the filters for the Service Module did not fit the slots for the filters for the Lunar Module. This problem was resolved when engineers on the ground built a makeshift filter that connected the cube shaped canisters to the circular canisters by drawing air through a suit return house. One of the more major problems faced by ground control was creating a start up procedure of all the necessary systems for reentry without exceeding the Lunar Modules power supply. The astronauts were faced with the fear of a wire short-circuiting because the temperature was so cold in the Lunar Module that condensation had started to build on the controls. Although this did not serve to be a problem because of the extra insulation added to the wiring after the Apollo 1

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