Apollo 13 Failure

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Apollo 13 was set to be the third mission to land on the moon this is ironic because it quite simply didn’t do that. It is the most iconic as well sprouting many books and one movie. The space craft was launched at 2:13 pm EST, april11, 1970 and was set to land on the moon however they didn’t make it to do to several mechanical problems with the ship. The chances of survival was slim and the team was not prepared for mechanical failure on such a drastic level. This grueling trip lasted a period of 142 hours and 54 minutes . The mission was to land on the moon that did not happen because one of the oxygen tanks exploded witch forced the crew to orbit the moon and return to earth without landing. This was not the last mission to the moon …show more content…

At 10:07 PM the incident occurred. About 60 hours into the flight an oxygen tank exploded and the other was being depleted. As soon as he noticed the failure he switched the number 2 oxygen tank to stir . This was a problem because they only had two oxygen stores on the ship. The crew could not go to the moon but that was the least of their problems without oxygen the ship could not produce water. The ship needed water to cool systems, as well as the astronauts needed water to drink and hydrate the food they would eat. A lot of the food was deemed. They stretched the supply that they already had witch was supposed to last 45 hours but they made it last 90 . This is one of the compromises the astronauts had to give in order to survive the grueling trip to space and back. Another major issue was removing carbon dioxide from carbon dioxide from the capsule that the men would use to return to earth. After a discussion on the ground NASA decided to have the men make a system of parts they found on the ship. It was a lot of plastic bags, cardboard, a space suit, and a lot of tape.” The contraption wasn’t very handsome but it worked”, said Jim Lovell . As soon as the astronauts aborted the mission they switched there trajectory to loop around the moon a couple additional angle changes were necessary to ensure the fastest safest trip back . One of which was the trans earth injection burn witch shave about 9 hours off the journey. As well as two slight midcourse changes all of this was done with without decent engine or control system. All of this was accomplished in very difficult conditions. Almost all of the electrical systems were turned off to conserve power. With all of the systems of the ship was not maintaining heat. A lot of moisture was in the space craft witch only added to the men’s discomfort in the 40 degree capsule

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