April 17th...This Day in History (Lunar Spacecraft Returns to Earth + others)

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Apollo 13 returns to Earth 1970

 

With the world anxiously watching, Apollo 13, a U.S. lunar spacecraft that suffered a severe malfunction on its journey to the moon, safely returns to Earth.

On April 11, the third manned lunar landing mission was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying astronauts James A. Lovell, John L. Swigert, and Fred W. Haise. The mission was headed for a landing on the Fra Mauro highlands of the moon. However, two days into the mission, disaster struck 200,000 miles from Earth when oxygen tank No. 2 blew up in the spacecraft. Swigert reported to mission control on Earth, “Houston, we’ve had a problem here,” and it was discovered that the normal supply of oxygen, electricity, light, and water had been disrupted. The landing mission was aborted, and the astronauts and controllers on Earth scrambled to come up with emergency procedures. The crippled spacecraft continued to the moon, circled it, and began a long, cold journey back to Earth.

The astronauts and mission control were faced with enormous logistical problems in stabilizing the spacecraft and its air supply, as well as providing enough energy to the damaged fuel cells to allow successful reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. Navigation was another problem, and Apollo 13‘s course was repeatedly corrected with dramatic and untested maneuvers. On April 17, tragedy turned to triumph as the Apollo 13 astronauts touched down safely in the Pacific Ocean.

 (More Events on This Day in History)

• American Revolution

• 1783 Colbert launches raid on Fort Carlos, Arkansas

• Automotive

• 1964 Ford Mustang debuts at World’s Fair

• Civil War

• 1864 Battle of Plymouth, North Carolina, begins

• Cold War

• 1961 The Bay of Pigs invasion begins

• Crime

• 1936 A single horsehair uncovers a murderer

• Disaster

• 1815 Volcanic eruption kills 80,000

• General Interest

• 1790 Benjamin Franklin dies
• 1941 Yugoslavia surrenders
• 1969 Architect of Czechoslovakia’s Prague Spring resigns

• Hollywood

• 2002 General Hospital airs 10,000th episode

• Literary

• 1885 Isak Dinesen is born
• 2014 Gabriel Garcia Marquez dies at age 87

• Music

• 1960 Eddie Cochran dies, and Gene Vincent is injured, in a UK car accident

• Old West

• 1882 Life of Billy the Kid arrives at Library of Congress

• Presidential

• 1961 JFK waits for word on the Bay of Pigs invasion

• Sports

• 1976 Mike Schmidt hits four consecutive homers

• Vietnam War

• 1972 First antiwar protest of the year is conducted
• 1975 Cambodia falls to the Khmer Rouge

• World War I

• 1917 Second Battle of Gaza

• World War II

• 1941 The Yugoslav army surrenders
• 1942 General Henri Giraud makes his great escape
• 1945 Americans seize 1,100 tons of uranium