Saturday, January 25, 1997

Apollo 13 (Aquarius)

  1970-029C


Lunar Module 7, the Apollo 13 LM, was intended to land at Fra Mauro. After the explosion on board the CSM, Odyssey, survival depended on using the LM as a lifeboat. The crew transferred into Aquarius as power on Odyssey failed, powering up the LM just in time. At 0842 on Apr 14 the LM's DPS engine was fired on a 30 second burn to put the ship back on a free-return trajectory. Two hours after skimming 252 km above the lunar farside, the DPS reignited (a burn called PC+2) for 4 min 30 sec to accelerate the return, as supplies began to run low. At 1315 on Apr 17 the Service Module was jettisoned, leaving the CM attached to the Lunar Module. This was the only time that this configuration (a Command Module/Lunar Module without a Service Module) ever flew. As the SM moved away, the destruction of the side bay was visible to the astronauts. At 1643 the crew, now back in Odyssey, undocked and let Aquarius fly on to its destruction in Earth's atmosphere. The Ascent and Descent stages remained attached up to reentry.


    LM 7 Crew

  • CDR Commander: James Lovell, Capt. USN

  • CMP CM Pilot: John Swigert, NASA

  • LMP LM Pilot: Fred Haise, NASA


LM 7 
 

DateTimeEventOrbit  

1970 Apr 11 1913 Launch of SA-508, attached to S-IVB-508 
1970 Apr 11 2314 Extracted from S-IVB by CSM 109  219 x 549183 x 31.83  
1970 Apr 14 0119 Crew entry 
1970 Apr 14 0159 Power up 
1970 Apr 14 0300 Closeout 
1970 Apr 14 0451 Crew entry and power-up 
1970 Apr 14 0842:43 DPS burn, 0:30 (free-return) 
 0843:18 DPS cutoff  -2046 x 577644 x 33.21 
1970 Apr 15 0021 Begin farside pass 
1970 Apr 15 0040 Pericynthion, 252 km 
1970 Apr 15 0046 End of farside pass 
1970 Apr 15 0240:39 PC+2 burn, DPS 4:30  265 x -12706 x 153.5  
 0245:03  Cutoff  2243 x -12095 x 151.9  
1970 Apr 15  1424?  Equigrav inbound 
1970 Apr 16 0431:28 MCC-5, DPS mid course correction  -147 x 854824 x 30.7  
 0431:42 MCC-5 CO  -261 x 853853 x 30.7  
1970 Apr 17 1252:51 MCC-7, RCS mid-course correction (0:23)  47 x 834822 x 30.7 
 1253:13 MCC-7 CO  41 x 836737 x 30.6  
1970 Apr 17 1315:06 Sep from SM-109, still docked to CM-109  41 x 836791 x 30.6 
1970 Apr 17 1315 Visual inspection of SM-109 
1970 Apr 17 1600? Crew transfer to Odyssey, hatch closed 
1970 Apr 17 1643:02 Odyssey undocked from Aquarius  41 x 836791 x 30.64 
1970 Apr 17 1750? Reentry

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