(dramatic music)
Auto-sequence indicated (mumbles).
Roger.
Roger, how's it look, ECON?
Got your (crosstalk)?
Okay.
Ignition flight.
On the evening of April 13th 1970,
NASA's Apollo 13 crew was 200,000 miles from home,
hurdling through space,
and closing in on their target,
the moon.
We show 13 at an altitude
of 174,664 nautical miles,
and this is Apollo Control Houston.
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin
had already made history touching down
on the lunar surface first.
And despite some launch drama,
Apollo 12 also had a successful lunar landing mission.
So for mission commander Jim Lovell,
command module pilot Jack Swigert,
and lunar module pilot Fred Hays,
Apollo 13 should have been the third time charm.
But it wasn't.
No one could believe that an explosion
that disastrous had happened.
The only thing they could do
was look out the window
and try to hold it steady.
Very critical,
because if it was too steep,
the sudden acceleration
would make us a fiery meteor Earth for just a few seconds,
and that would be it.
This is the crew of Apollo 13,
wishing everybody there a nice evening...
The crew has just wrapped up
a live TV broadcast,
showing those on Earth how comfortably
they can live and work in zero gravity.
We're just about ready to close out
our inspection of Aquarius,
and get back for a pleasant evening in Odyssey.
Good night.
Mission Control asks Apollo 13
for their last checklist item that evening.
13, we've got one more item for you
when you get a chance.
We'd like it to stir up your cryotanks.
The cryotanks are the oxygen tanks.
The power fans were turned on within the tank
for the third cryo stir of the mission.
The procedure to stir the oxygen slush inside the tank
to avoid settling.
What happens next is unimaginable.
(explosion)
The crew hears a loud bang.
One of the two oxygen tanks has just exploded.
Okay, Houston,
we've had a problem here.
The spacecraft has suffered
a catastrophic emergency.
Unbeknownst to the crew,
the service module now has a gaping hole in its side.
Yet, by some miracle,
the crew is alive.
This is Houston,
say again please.
All right Houston,
we've had a problem.
The explosion sets off a domino of disasters
for the crew.
Warning lights indicate the loss
of two of the three fuel cells.
The spacecraft's primary source
of electricity and life support.
Water supply is cut off.
Oxygen tank one is empty.
Our 0.2 quantity number two tank
is reading zero.
Did you get that?
The second oxygen tank is rapidly depleting.
What happened on the service module
was a double failure.
A manifold blew out that took out
both fuel cells' power systems.
There was no power on the vehicle,
except for the batteries in the command module.
The quick-thinking crew
tries to close the hatch
between the command and lunar modules
to protect their oxygen supply.
Continuing to troubleshoot
with the Apollo 13 crew,
closely watching oxygen quantities and pressures
in the command module.
But the hatched lid won't stay shut,
so they secure it with a strap.
Thirteen minutes after the explosion,
Lovell just happens to look out the left-hand window
and see something venting.
He reports to Mission Control.
We are venting something out into the...
Into space.
Roger, we copy you're venting.
Lovell's lucky glance warns the crew
of another potential catastrophe.
The venting is precious oxygen,
rapidly escaping the second
and only remaining oxygen tank.
Without oxygen, the crew is doomed.
Not only does it supply the breathing air,
but the fuel cells need oxygen and hydrogen
to provide water and power to the spacecraft.
And now the fuel cells were dying.
The command module batteries had to be saved
for re-entry, which was days away.
Time is of the essence.
Astronauts, flight controllers, and engineers
across America get to work.
They must invent a plan to bring the crew home alive.
One challenge is to find a trajectory
to bring the crippled spacecraft home safely.
The crew must change course,
because they are heading straight for the moon.
As oxygen levels near zero,
NASA begins planning for an alternate mission.
They propose a radical idea.
It's slowly going to zero,
and we're starting to think about the LEM lifeboat.
The crew agrees.
Yeah, that's what we're thinking about too.
They will use the lunar module
to keep the crew alive,
and to get them onto a return to Earth trajectory.
We now show an altitude
of 180,521 nautical miles.
Here in Mission Control, we are now looking towards
an alternate mission.
Swinging around the moon
and using the lunar module power systems
because of the situation
that has developed here this evening.
This free return trajectory
uses the moon's gravitational force
to propel them back home.
Flight director Glynn Lenney
assures the world with caution.
We think we have the situation in control,
we've projected the consumables as described,
and we have a plan for carrying out
the rest of the mission.
But there is going to be no relaxation at all,
as far as that goes,
from now until splash.
Next, to preserve critical power
for their return,
they shut down the command module,
and will go to minimum power in the lunar module,
or LEM.
The Apollo 13 problem was a shortage of power.
So everything had to be shut down,
and the question was,
can we turn off the gyroscopes,
can we turn off the heaters?
We had to turn it back on again for the re-entry,
and could we do that?
We had thought it over very carefully
about what was inside these inertial instruments.
Would anything break?
Would they come back on again?
That's what you're worried about.
And finally, they have to figure out
a navigation plan.
Exactly how, when, and in what attitude
would they burn the lunar module descent engine
to provide a quick return home?
The Lunar Excursion module, LEM,
it was designed to land on the moon,
but it wasn't designed to control everything
coming back to Earth.
Completely new procedures
had to be written and tested in the simulator
before being passed up to the crew.
With only 15 minutes of power left in the command module,
CAPCOM Jack Lousma instructs the crew
to make their way into the LEM.
Flight ECON.
Go ahead, ECON.
The pressure in O2 tank one is all the way down
to 297, we better think about getting in the LEM.
Or using the LEM system.
The LEM was designed to supply
only enough oxygen and power to support
two men for two days,
but it was being asked to care for three men for four days.
To conserve power,
the crew shuts off all but the life-sustaining systems
in the LEM.
Water is another huge concern.
They need it to cool systems and keep the crew hydrated.
We're at this time water-critical in the LEM.
So we'd like to use as little as possible.
The crew cuts down their intake
to six ounces each per day.
They would be dangerously dehydrated
throughout the return.
Carbon dioxide is another major problem.
Day two in the LEM.
A warning light indicates dangerous levels
of CO2 buildup.
They have to figure out a way
to soak up the carbon dioxide they're exhaling.
There were square filters to remove CO2
from the spacecraft in the command module,
and round receptacles in the LEM.
Engineers on the ground scrambled
to find a way to fit square peg
into a round hole.
Their solution requires spacesuit parts,
socks, a flight manual cover,
and duct tape.
The crew hacks a new system
while combating the effects of poisonous gas
building up inside.
Once the CO2 crisis is over,
everyone immediately turns their attention
to the biggest challenge of all:
navigation.
Apollo 13 is still heading straight for the moon.
Somehow, they must change their course
to a return to Earth trajectory,
or the entire crew will perish.
The only option is to push
using the lunar module's descent engine.
A risky maneuver that had never been tested.
So there was some point between the explosion
and the realization that their only way home
was to push,
that we had to start doing those simulations.
The lunar module was equipped
with the same navigation and guidance system
as the command module,
but with different software.
Engineers who designed the system weren't sure
if the LEM would be able to handle navigation
for the entire spacecraft in powered flight.
So this had happened,
(mumbles) the problem.
You know, (mumbles) the question was asked me,
can your assimilator simulate the lunar module
pushing the command module back home?
The lunar module was controlling
the combination of the command module
and the service module.
So that was the biggest challenge for that mission,
was that we had to work out in real time new algorithms.
We had to answer the question,
when the lunar module fires its engine
to push the command module,
is the whole thing going to break in half
and fly apart?
Nobody comes home.
There is no recovery.
We didn't have two weeks, we didn't have a day.
You know, we had hours.
Doing this simulation was kind of important.
They wanted to know if it was going to work.
We ran all sorts of tests.
We didn't have a lot of time.
And that happened and there was essentially a day
to get all sorts of analysis and testing done.
As the astronauts close in on the moon,
ground engineers calculate various options
to get them home.
Each carries its own risk,
and they are running out of time.
Flight directors Gene Kranz and Chris Kraft
picked the option that requires two major
trajectory corrections,
powered by the LEM descent engine.
The crew is able to transfer
the command module's navigation platform to the LEM.
But first, the LEM's navigation system
must be realigned.
The computer could tell us actually
how to get back home,
if we had a problem en route to the moon.
I had to manually, and look outside,
to see the stars,
and then move the spacecraft around,
and then try to get the stars into the objects
so that I could do the alignment that way.
Ordinarily, the spacecraft
uses star points and the onboard navigation enoptic system
to align the spacecraft
for mid-course maneuvers.
But Lovell must do it by eye manually
through the ship's window.
Take a look.
We'd like to know if you can see stars
for alignment purposes.
No, we're not able to,
but (muffled speaking),
gave away at the time of the mishap,
(muffled speaking),
we do have the earth and moon back in the (mumbles).
Explosion debris
swirling outside the spacecraft
makes it impossible to sight real stars.
So Lovell uses the sun instead as an alignment star.
Luckily, Commander Lovell is the only astronaut
uniquely trained for this difficult task
because of a mistake he made just over a year earlier
as a Navigator on Apollo 8.
Houston, Apollo 8.
Apollo 8 Houston, go ahead.
Roger, for some reason
we suddenly got program 01 and no attitude light
on our computer.
Pushed the wrong button actually telling the computer
and the guidance system
that we're back on the launchpad.
So we had to manually then go look at the stars
and realign that platform,
which we successfully did.
A year or so later,
on Apollo 13,
we had to turn off our computer,
turn off our guidance system to save power.
I was pretty confident
that I could get our alignment back again.
And basically, because of the training I had
inadvertently on Apollo 8.
With the navigation system aligned,
the crew prepares to change course for home.
This is Apollo Control,
that's present time,
a flight dynamics officer
here in Mission Control is computing
a maneuver to place Apollo 13
back on a free return trajectory.
The alignment with the sun
proves to be less than one half a degree off,
giving the crew confidence they can execute
the lifesaving burn necessary
to get them on course for Earth.
What do you got?
Upper-right corner of the sun.
We've got it!
Houston, Aquarius.
Go ahead (mumbles).
Okay, it looks like the sun check passes.
We understand it checks out.
We're kind of glad to hear that.
They had no attitude reference,
the intertial guidance system was not on
and so they were trying to
steer that whole conglomeration,
command module and the LEM,
steer the whole thing so that they could
do the mid-cross correction in the right direction.
And the only thing they could do
was look out the window of the LEM
and try to hold it steady.
A 35 second burn
allows Apollo 13 to swing around the moon
onto a free return to Earth course.
One of the most impressive things
that they were able to do
was to target that trajectory
and burn and actually control the vehicle,
to get back to that trajectory by hand.
That, to me, is one of the most amazing things.
About 18 hours later,
after routing the far side of the moon,
they initiate the second burn to speed up their return.
An enormous relief,
when the burn happened,
and it didn't come apart.
Just an incredible sense of relief.
While the world waits,
the crew is on their way home.
Strict food and water rations,
freezing temperatures,
and condensation forming all over
makes it a difficult two and a half day journey.
Sleep is virtually impossible.
So the three days coming back were nerve-wracking
because they had to just survive.
As the crew approaches re-entry to Earth,
they crawl back into a cold, dark command module
to make sure they can re-start the guidance system.
(dramatic music)
We were forced to shut that system down with no power.
It was never designed to do that.
The critical components
of the guidance system are the computer,
and an inertial measurement unit,
with stabilizing gyroscopes.
The inertial system was a crucial element.
The gyros were filled with fluid,
and the fluid had to be maintained
at like 154 degrees Fahrenheit.
The gyroscopes were exposed
to a drastic drop in temperature
as a result of power failures after the explosion.
The worst fear is they wouldn't start
when you turn them on.
And if you did turn them on,
did you have enough performance
to even get into the entry corridor?
Engineers needed to test
the gyroscopes on Earth,
and quickly report results to Mission Control.
The one thing that we did
was to take guidance systems
and shove them in the freezer
while this was all going on,
just to figure out what might happen.
Here at the laboratory,
we did days of testing,
and we put them in refrigerators,
put them in car trunks,
then brought them in to test them,
to start them,
and see what kind of performance we could get.
Most of the time they worked,
but once in a while, they didn't.
So there was always an element of doubt.
It was a big question,
whether gyros would even turn on.
Ready to start (muffled) ?
It is go time.
The crew attempts to power up the command module.
(muffled speaking)
Okay (muffled).
It's good.
And it works.
But, as the spacecraft nears re-entry,
ground tracking detects an unexpected change
in trajectory.
This could spell disaster for the crew.
Very critical, because we're too shallow,
we would skip off like skipping a stone on water.
If it was too steep,
the sun to cell ratio would make us a fiery
meteor Earth for just a few seconds, and that would be it.
Mission Control decides to do
one last course correction.
They're going to be
possibly taking us away from the place
we know we want to be in the ball.
Once again,
they turn to Jim Lovell,
the only astronaut uniquely qualified
from his time aboard Apollo 8.
One of the things they trained on
was how you restart the navigation fix
in the computers while coming back to Earth.
It was a program that if we had lost
our guidance system completely,
and we're coming back,
how can we make a final maneuver
to sort of get back
into the proper position to make a safe landing?
Using the limb's attitude control rockets,
Lovell performs a manual burn
to make sure they hit their re-entry target.
So on 8, he did it.
And the only other time
they used that type of re-initialization
of the navigation system was on 13.
And they happened to have
the one person who was experienced in doing it
on board the vehicle, with Jim Lovell.
It was an emergency procedure,
but came in pretty handy on Apollo 13.
That was the way we made our final maneuver
to get back into the earth's atmosphere.
Four hours before landing,
the crew faces their next hurdle.
Command module has to separate
from the service module.
It wasn't known that the separation
was going to work.
But it does.
As the module drifts away,
the crew is able to photograph the wreckage,
revealing just how lucky they are.
That's when we saw this incredible explosion
on the side of the service module.
And there's one whole side
of that thing missing.
Is that right?
The whole panel is blown out
almost from the base to the engine.
It's really a mess.
Man, that's unbelievable.
No one could believe that an explosion
that disastrous had happened.
Three hours later,
the crew leaves the lunar module Aquarius for good,
and prepares for the last hurdle.
They jettison their life boat,
and brace for a fiery re-entry
down a narrow corridor.
(mumbles) had three cold astronauts in it,
but it just re-entered flawlessly,
like it had been trained to do.
(dramatic music)
Hello 13,
this is Recovery.
We observed your RCS burn, over.
This is Recovery,
Apollo 13 is descending.
Odyssey Houston standing by, over.
Moments later,
with the entire world watching,
they splashed down gently in the Pacific Ocean near Samoa.
Odyssey Houston, we show you on the main,
it's really looking great.
Apollo 13 did not land on the moon.
But thanks to the incredible efforts of its crew,
and the tremendous ingenuity of experts on the ground,
the astronauts made it safely home.
After an intense investigation,
the Apollo 13 Accident Review Board
identified the cause of the explosion.
During a final launchpad test before the mission,
the oxygen tank heaters were left on too long,
degrading some of the fans' wire installation,
causing a short circuit.
Through this remarkable post-mission laboratory test,
engineers determined that
when the exposed bandwires shorted,
the Teflon insulation caught fire,
triggering a massive oxygen fuel explosion.
That explosion took place on April 13, 1970,
when the crew of Apollo 13 was more than
200,000 miles from home.
(intense music)