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@kscosmosphere

17 Apr

Apollo 13: Celebrating Splashdown!

In the 1st picture, NASA notes that Haise is ascending in a "Billy Pugh" net to the Navy recovery helicopter, while Lovell and Swigert wait in the life raft. The 2nd picture shows a joyous celebration inside the MOCR in Houston, Texas. 1/10

Gene Kranz is celebrating in the foreground, with Deke Slayton and others in the background.

The crew and flight controllers had earned this celebration. Apollo 13's mission ended with one final hair raising event. 2/10

All spacecraft reentering Earth's atmosphere experience a blackout period, where the spacecraft is out of contact with mission control. Odyssey took longer than normal to emerge from the radio blackout caused by the ionization of the atmosphere around the spacecraft. 3/10

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@kscosmosphere

17 Apr

Apollo 13: Goodbye, Aquarius
The Lunar Module (LM), Aquarius, was jettisoned just before reentry. Jettisoning Aquarius happened at the last possible minute, to ensure that the batteries on the Command Module (CM) Odyssey had enough power to last through reentry & splashdown. 1/6

Aquarius was called on to perform tasks no other LM had done in this history of the Apollo program. From midcourse corrections to life support, the LM performed above expectations for a craft that was initially designed to land two astronauts on the Moon. 2/6

This black & white image shows Aquarius just after it was jettisoned. Notice the ladder on the LM descent stage, as well as the footpads that would have touched down on the surface. This stage would have stayed on the Moon had A13 not been plagued by the loss of O2 tank 2. 3/6

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@kscosmosphere

15 Apr

Apollo 13: Scrubber Time!
On Wednesday, April 15, 1970, just after 7:20 a.m. CT, astronaut Joe Kerwin started to walk Jim Lovell through the build process for the CO2 adapter. 1/9

Kerwin was the CAPCOM (Capsule Communicator) during this phase of the mission and was tasked with relaying the instructions for building the CO2 scrubber adapter to the crew of Apollo 13. 2/9

The Lunar Module lithium hydroxide canisters were round, while the Command Module canisters were square. NASA engineers tried to avoid two types of filters during the design process of the Lunar Module and Command Module. 3/9

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@kscosmosphere

12 Apr

On April 12, 1981, 20 after Yuri Gagarin's historic first spaceflight, John Young and Robert Crippen lifted off into the history books as the first crew of the Space Shuttle program on STS-1.
The Shuttle Columbia lifted off seconds after 7 a.m. Eastern time from Pad 39A. 1/7

Their mission was the first time that astronauts had flown on a launch vehicle that hadn’t previously been tested.
The Shuttle stack, which consisted of the orbiter, solid rocket boosters (SRBs), and external tank (ET), flew together for the first time. 2/7

Commander John Young, a Gemini and Apollo veteran, and rookie astronaut Robert Crippen spent two days in space, testing orbiter systems and demonstrating “safe launch into orbit and return to landing of Columbia and its crew.” 3/7

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@kscosmosphere

12 Apr

On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to enter space and the first to orbit Earth.
Vostok 1’s mission lasted for 108 minutes, and Gagarin and his capsule completed one orbit of Earth. 1/8

The R-7 rocket which lifted Gagarin into space had a 50% success rate at this point in history. Thankfully, Gagarin's launch was successful, and he experienced the wonders of seeing Earth from space. He ate, took notes, and operated the spacecraft during his time in orbit. 2/8

Things were progressing nominally until just after the retrorockets fired for reentry. A tumbling motion, about thirty degrees per second, put Gagarin into an uncontrolled spin. The spherical DM didn’t separate from the instrument section of the spacecraft as planned. 3/8

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11 Apr

Liftoff of Apollo 13! "The clock is running." 👨‍🚀👨‍🚀👨‍🚀❤️🙌🏼

Apollo 13 lifted off at 2:13 p.m. EDT on April 11, 1970. The original goal of this mission was to land in the hilly upland region of the Moon, called the Fra Mauro highlands. 1/12

This was supposed to be the third mission to land on the Moon.

The original crew members for Apollo 13 were astronauts Jim Lovell, Ken Mattingly, and Fred Haise. 2/12

Ken Mattingly was inadvertently exposed to the German measles in the days before the launch, necessitating his replacement. This meant that Jack Swigert became the Command Module Pilot just three days before liftoff. 3/12

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