Farewell Aquarius

We have all heard the famous words “Houston, we have a problem” but not all of us know how they came to be. The year was 1969 and the American space program, NASA, was in a heated race to beat the Russian space program to the moon. Finally, on June 20, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took the first steps on the moon. Their mission was a part of the Apollo space program and was followed by Apollo 12, which also landed on the moon.

However, these missions did not inspire “Houston, we have a problem”. The third planned mission to land on the moon was Apollo 13. Jim Lovell served as the Commander, Jack Swigert served as the Command Module Pilot, and Fred Haise Jr. was the Lunar Module Pilot. Apollo 13 lifted off on April 11, 1970 and the crew sat on top of the Saturn 5 Spacecraft Booster. After liftoff the crew got situated in their Command Module, nicknamed the Odyssey, and set off on their four day journey to the moon.

On the third day in space, Houston called up to the Odyssey and told them to turn on the fans built inside the oxygen tanks to keep them from freezing. During this process, a damaged coil sparked and exploded, rupturing both oxygen tanks. The pressure inside the spacecraft then caused a second explosion, not harming the crew but putting their lives at risk and canceling any thoughts of a lunar landing. While in the cockpit, Jim Lovell watched his alarms light up like the fourth of July. Once he saw this happen he called down to Houston and said “Houston, we have a problem”.

The explosion caused a main bus A and a main bus B undervolt and drained their oxygen which powered all the instruments and served as fuel. Main bus A and B are filters that power the Odyssey’s instruments and during an “undervolt” they lose all of their electricity. Due to this event, the crew had to power down all of their instruments, including the cabin heaters, to save power. They then moved into the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), nicknamed the Aquarius, which was only supposed to support two guys for a day and a half but, thanks to efforts by the crew and mission control, supported three guys for four days. Temperatures in the spacecraft reached 30 degrees Fahrenheit but on Friday, April 17, 1970 the crew jettisoned the LEM and Jim Lovell said “Farewell Aquarius and we thank you”. The crew of Apollo 13 splashed down in the Indian Ocean later that same day and was finally safe.