Get the latest updates on NASA missions, watch NASA TV live, and learn about our quest to reveal the unknown and benefit all humankind. It was necessary due to the extreme heat from the friction of hitting the atmosphere at 25,000mph, which was close to 5,000 degrees.

Read More: Apollo 11 Mission: Mission Overview "The Apollo 11 mission was the eleventh in a series of flights using Apollo flight hardware and was the first lunar landing of the Apollo Program. The crew of Apollo 13 had only one shot for a safe reentry, and it required the bottom of the spacecraft to be in perfect condition.

Unlike some later missions, Apollo 11 didn't carry any experiments to pull samples up from below the moon's surface. The flight was commanded by Jim Lovell.The other astronauts on board were Jack Swigert and Fred Haise..

2 blows up on Apollo 13, the third manned lunar landing mission. The Apollo 13 mission was supposed to be one of the rare times man got to land on the moon. The power-up procedures Exactly 50 years ago, Apollo 13 set off from Earth and for the Moon. Apollo 13 wanted to land on the moon, on the area called Fra Mauro. NASA.gov brings you the latest images, videos and news from America's space agency. Astronauts

However, the mission went bad fast, and the flight crew was forced to adapt and adjust very quickly. The Apollo 13 Mission was planned as a lunar landing mission but was aborted en route to the moon after about 56 hours of flight due to loss of service module cryogenic oxygen and consequent loss of capability to generate electrical power, to provide oxygen and to produce water. The craft was launched successfully toward the Moon, but two days after launch a faulty oxygen tank exploded, and the Service Module became damaged, causing a loss of oxygen … Apollo 13 was the seventh mission of NASA's Project Apollo and the third manned lunar-lander mission. Here’s a handy infographic detailing what those steps were and how the Apollo 13 astronauts made that CO2 scrubber work. On April 13, 1970, disaster strikes 200,000 miles from Earth when oxygen tank No. This was known as the heat shield.

Mission Control in Houston couldn’t send pictures to the Apollo 13 crew. Mattingly said they solved the problem for Apollo 13 in about an hour or two, but another half-hour was spent building a demonstration model. They had to describe everything verbally and hope the astronauts got the picture. For other missions that were routine we didn’t play that big of a role, but for the Apollo 13 mission, we did play a role.” Woodfill tends to downplay both his role and the importance of the MER.