What happened to the Apollo 13 engine?
The Apollo 13 malfunction was caused by an explosion and rupture of oxygen tank no. 2 in the service module. The explosion ruptured a line or damaged a valve in the no. 1 oxygen tank, causing it to lose oxygen rapidly.
Did Apollo 13 lose an engine?
While oxygen tank number two on the Apollo 13 spacecraft was an accident waiting to happen, another problem on the Saturn V rocket could have destroyed Apollo 13 before it reached Earth orbit. During the second-stage boost, the center – or inboard — engine shut down two minutes early.
What was the glitch that happened during the launch of Apollo 13?
When the astronauts were about 200,000 miles from Earth, Mission Control asked Swigert to “stir” the cryogenic tanks—a routine task that generated a totally unexpected event: An exposed wire in the second oxygen tank ignited a fire that led to the blast that would rewrite Apollo 13’s mission.
What happened after the Apollo 13 mission?
Only Apollo 13 failed to make a lunar landing when an accident en route to the Moon forced the crew to abandon the mission and return to Earth after reaching lunar orbit. The last flight, Apollo 17, occurred in December 1972.
Is Apollo 13 LEM still in orbit?
Apollo 13 used its lunar module Aquarius as a lifeboat on the trip back to Earth leaving it to burn up in the atmosphere during reentry. They are, of course, still up there along with the remains of the smashed S-IVB and lunar modules for future archaeologists to explore.
Why did Apollo 13 take so long to get to orbit?
At 5 1/2 minutes after liftoff, John Swigert, Fred Haise and James Lovell felt a little vibration. Then the center engine of the S-II stage shut down two minutes early. 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.
What was the cause of the Apollo 13 failure?
The Apollo 13 malfunction was caused by an explosion and rupture of oxygen tank no. 2 in the service module. The explosion ruptured a line or damaged a valve in the no. 1 oxygen tank, causing it to lose oxygen rapidly.
Why did Apollo 13 not empty the oxygen tank?
During pre-flight testing, tank no. 2 showed anomalies and would not empty correctly, possibly due to the damaged fill line. (On the ground, the tanks were emptied by forcing oxygen gas into the tank and forcing the liquid oxygen out, in space there was no need to empty the tanks.)
What kind of power did Apollo 13 use?
The internal fill line was not known to be damaged, and this tank was later installed in Apollo 13. The oxygen tanks had originally been designed to run off the 28 volt DC power of the command and service modules. However, the tanks were redesigned to also run off the 65 volt DC ground power at Kennedy Space Center.