Apollo 13 Spacecraft Splashdown in the Pacific; NL-2009-06-015-HQ Image dated 4/17/1970
Washington DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2009. Part of Apollo 40 years series. Photograph. Format approximately 8.5 inches by 11 inches. Image size is approximately 6 inches by 7.25 inches. The caption reads: The Apollo 13 Command Module splashed down in the South Pacific at 12:07:44 p.m. on April 17, 1970, after a harrowing mission in which a ruptured oxygen tank put the crew in peril. The red and white parachutes were the first signal to Mission Control that astronauts Lovell, Haise, and Swigert had defied the odds and made it safely back to Earth. Apollo 13 was the seventh manned mission in the Apollo space program and the third intended to land on the Moon. The craft was launched on April 11, 1970 from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, but the lunar landing was aborted after an oxygen tank exploded two days later, crippling the Service Module upon which the Command Module had depended. Despite great hardship caused by limited power, loss of cabin heat, shortage of potable water, and the critical need to make makeshift repairs to the carbon dioxide removal system, the crew returned safely to Earth on April 17, 1970, six days after launch. The mission was commanded by James A. Lovell with John L. "Jack" Swigert as Command Module Pilot and Fred W. Haise as Lunar Module Pilot. Swigert was a late replacement for the original CM pilot Ken Mattingly, who was grounded by the flight surgeon after exposure to German measles. More