![]() Months later, after the accident investigation was complete, it was determined that when the No. 1 oxygen tank continued to drift downward passing 300 pounds per square inch, then headed toward 200 pounds per square inch. Exasperated and realizing that there wasn’t a cabin leak, they strapped the hatch to the CM couch. First Swigert, and then Lovell, tried to lock the reluctant hatch, but the stubborn lid wouldn’t stay shut. They reacted spontaneously, similar to a submarine crew, closing the hatches to limit the amount of flooding. The first thing the crew did, even before discovering the oxygen leak, was try to close the hatch between the CM and the LM. Capcom Jack Lousma replied, “Roger, we copy you venting.” Lovell said, “It’s a gas of some sort.” It was oxygen gas escaping at a high rate from the second, and last, oxygen tank. “We are venting something out into the… into space,” he reported to Houston. Thirteen minutes after the explosion, Lovell happened to look out of the left-hand window and saw the final evidence pointing toward potential catastrophe. With warning lights blinking, one oxygen tank appeared to be completely empty and there were indications that the oxygen in the second tank was rapidly depleting. Next, the warning lights indicated the loss of two of three fuel cells, which were the spacecraft’s prime source of electricity. Swigert saw a warning light that accompanied the bang and said, “Houston, we’ve had a problem here.” Lovell came on and told the ground that it was a main B bus undervolt. ![]() The message came in the form of a sharp bang and vibration at 9:08 p.m. The command module’s normal supply of electricity, light and water was lost, and they were about 200,000 miles from Earth. We’re bored to tears down here.” It was the last time anyone would mention boredom for a long time.Īt 55 hours, 46 minutes, as the crew finished a 49-minute TV broadcast showing how comfortably they lived and worked in weightlessness, Lovell said, “This is the crew of Apollo 13 wishing everybody there a nice evening, and we’re just about ready to close out our inspection of Aquarius and get back for a pleasant evening in Odyssey. At 46 hours, 43 minutes Joe Kerwin, the capsule communicator, or Capcom, on duty, said, “The spacecraft is in real good shape as far as we are concerned. The mission’s spent upper stage successfully impacted the moon.ĭuring the first two days, the crew ran into a couple of minor surprises, but generally Apollo 13 was looking like the smoothest flight of the program. Still, it was classified as a “successful failure” because of the experience gained in rescuing the crew. Due to an oversight in replacing an underrated component during a design modification, this turned out to severely damage the internal heating elements of the tank.Īpollo 13 was to be the third lunar landing attempt, but the mission was aborted after rupture of service module oxygen tank. The technique worked, but it took eight hours of 65-volt DC power from the ground support equipment to dissipate the oxygen. ![]() 2 by using the electrical heater within the tank. After a conference with contractor and NASA personnel, the test director decided to “boil off” the remaining oxygen in No. An interim discrepancy report was written, and on March 27, two weeks before launch, detanking operations resumed. Gaseous oxygen at 80 pounds per square inch was applied through the vent line to expel the liquid oxygen, but to no avail. 2 dropped to only 92 percent of capacity. The tanks normally are emptied to about half full. The tank was fixed, tested at the factory, installed in the Apollo 13 service module and tested again during the Countdown Demonstration Test at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center beginning March 16, 1970. 2 oxygen tank, serial number 10024X-TA0009, had been previously installed in the service module of Apollo 10, but was removed for modification and damaged in the process. Ground tests before launch indicated the possibility of a poorly insulated supercritical helium tank in the lunar module, or LM, descent stage, so the flight plan was modified to enter the LM three hours early in order to obtain an onboard readout of helium tank pressure. Command Module Pilot Ken Mattingly had no immunity to measles and was replaced by backup command module pilot, John “Jack” Swigert. This caused the remaining four engines to burn 34 seconds longer than planned, and the S-IVB third stage had to burn nine seconds longer to put Apollo 13 in orbit.ĭays before the mission, backup lunar module pilot, Charles Duke, inadvertently exposed the crew to German measles. Then the center engine of the S-II stage shut down two minutes early. At 5 1/2 minutes after liftoff, John “Jack” Swigert, Fred Haise and James Lovell felt a little vibration.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |