Apollo 13 safely returned its crew after an oxygen tank exploded en route to the Moon in 1970.
Launched on April 11, 1970, Apollo 13 was intended to be the third crewed lunar landing mission. About 56 hours after launch, an oxygen tank in the service module ruptured, causing major power and life-support problems in the command module.
The astronauts—James Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise—used the lunar module Aquarius as a temporary lifeboat. Mission Control in Houston developed procedures to conserve electricity, manage carbon dioxide, and correct the spacecraft’s return trajectory.
Apollo 13 did not land on the Moon. The crew safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on April 17, 1970. The mission is often called a “successful failure” because the landing objective was lost, but the astronauts were rescued. Apollo 13 is sometimes confused with Apollo 1, which ended in a ground-test fire before launch.