Sunita Williams Still Stranded in Space: NASA’s Apollo 13 ‘Successful Failure’ Offers Hope – The Full Story

The current situation on Boeing’s Starliner brings back the memory of NASA’s “successful failure” Apollo 13 mission that stunned everyone 54 years ago.

NASA astronaut Sunita Williams laughs with relatives as she leaves the Operations and Checkout building before heading to Space Launch Complex 41 to board the Boeing’s Starliner capsule atop an Atlas V rocket for a mission to the International Space Station at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Monday, May 6, 2024, in Cape Canaveral, (AP)

Will astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore, who are spending overtime on Boeing’s Starliner capsule, ever return from space?

Earlier this week, Reuters cited sources as saying that Starliner’s latest targeted return date is July 6. This would mean that the mission, originally planned for eight days, would last a month.

The current situation on Boeing’s Starliner brings back the memory of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) “successful failure” mission that stunned everyone 54 years ago.

Marred by an explosion on a spacecraft, three astronauts were left “swinging around the moon”, over 2,05,000 miles away from Earth. The year was 1970, the mission was Apollo 13 and the US’ third attempt to land on the Moon, near the crater Fra Mauro, had turned into a survival challenge for the crew.

‘Houston, We’ve Had a Problem’ – the phrase that has now become famous was radioed from Apollo 13 to Mission Control upon a catastrophic explosion that dramatically changed the mission. Three things were “absolutely necessary” for the survival – team work, good leadership and initiative to think out of the box.

How is Apollo 13 similar to Boeing’s Starliner capsule? The situation of US astronauts, Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, may not be the same, or as dire as that of the Apollo 13 crew. However, technical glitches on the spacecraft and the following mid-mission fixes may offer similarities between the two NASA missions.

Since its June 5 liftoff, the Boeing capsule has had five helium leaks, five maneuvering thrusters go dead and a slow-moving propellant valve that signalled unfixed past issues, Reuters reported.

This prompted the crew in space and mission managers in Houston to spend more time than expected pursuing fixes mid-mission. NASA officials were quoted as saying that they want to better understand the cause of the thruster failures, valve issue and helium leaks before Starliner begins its return.

Now, here’s a throwback to the Apollo 13 mission and the story behind the incredible journey of its crew, who raced against the time and space to return to Earth after a failed moon-landing attempt.

Meet the Apollo 13 heroes

Before delving into Apollo 13’s incredible journey back to Earth, meet the heroes behind the safe landing of the three-membered crew. The three astronauts who battled for their life in space were Jim Lovell (Hanks), Fred Haise (Paxton), and Jack Swigert (Bacon).

Commander Jim Lovell and Lunar Module Pilot Fred Haise were scheduled to land on the Moon in the lunar module Aquarius on April 15 and explore the Fra Mauro region for 33 hours. Command Module Pilot Swigert was supposed to remain in lunar orbit in the command module Odyssey. The crew would have returned to Earth on April 21.

But their journey was cut short by four days after an explosion rocked the spacecraft and put their life at risk. The ground crew at Mission Control, along with astronaut Ken Mattingly (Sinise) and flight director Gene Kranz (Harris), raced against time to bring the astronauts back home.

‘Plagued by bad luck from the very beginning’

Days before the Apollo 13 mission launched, the crew was exposed to German measles. According to NASA, backup lunar module pilot Charles Duke exposed the crew to measles.

“Command Module Pilot Ken Mattingly had no immunity to measles and was replaced by backup command module pilot, John “Jack” Swigert,” the US space agency said.

Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell said in an interview that the mission was “plagued by bad omens and bad luck from the very beginning”.

A loud bang

John “Jack” Swigert, Fred Haise and James Lovell felt a “little vibration” just 5-1/2 minutes after the Apollo mission launched into the space, NASA reported.

Two days into the journey, the crew made a live TV broadcast from space, soon after which mission control asked Swigert to “flip a switch to perform a routine stir of the spacecraft’s oxygen tanks”.

Nine minutes later, the spacecraft was rocked by an explosion, causing first Swigert and then Lovell to report back to Earth – “Houston, we’ve had a problem.” The blast sounded like when “you take a coke can and squeeze it”.

“We heard this loud bang, which kind of reverberated with a little echo because the vehicles we were in were metal vehicles. It was kind of…you in a big barrel and hit on the side with a sledgehammer kind of sound. In the tunnel area, some of the metals were actually crinkling – kind a like you take a coke can and squeeze it,” an astronaut explained.

What caused explosion? ‘It was a bomb waiting to go off’

The explosion was caused by an oxygen tank that had blown up, causing the second oxygen tank to also fail. The oxygen tank that exploded appeared to be completely empty, and there were indications that the oxygen in the second tank was rapidly depleting. The explosion blew the entire side of the spacecraft off.

It was later revealed that the explosion had occurred on the tank which already damaged. The crew was unaware that the spacecraft had been damaged even before it blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970.

Jim Lovell explained what had exactly happened.

“Years before the flight, when the spacecraft was being built, a damaged liquid oxygen tank was installed in the spacecraft. The tank had been dropped on the factory floor. A little piece of the plumbing had prevented the normal procedure for removing oxygen after a routine test prior to the flight,” he said.

“And then, on the day before the flight, we filled up the tank again with liquid oxygen, and it was a bomb waiting to go off,” Lovell said.

That bomb exploded on April 13, 1970 – 200,000 miles from Earth.

3 men lost in the space: No sleep, water and light

The electrical system in the command module was dying. “The command module’s normal supply of electricity, light and water was lost, and they were about 200,000 miles from Earth,” NASA said.

The trip was marked by discomfort beyond the lack of food and water. “Sleep was almost impossible because of the cold” as the temperatures dropped to 3 degree Celsius. Moreover, carbon dioxide became a problem with every exhale.

The warning lights also indicated the loss of two of three fuel cells, which were the spacecraft’s prime source of electricity. The oxygen supply was needed to run the fuel cells.

“Now, in the process of powering down the Command Module, which has less than 15 minutes remaining of electrical power,” an astronaut was heard saying in a radio message.

Escape plan: The crucial 15 minutes

The lunar module, which was supposed to land on the Moon’s surface, became the crew’s lifeboat. The three astronauts moved to the Lunar Module for most of the return flight.

Lovell said the first goal at that time was to transfer “the guidance system” from the command module to the lunar module (which was now carrying the crew back to the earth).

“We have about only 15 minutes to do that,” Lovell said. “We were in the lunar module before the round realized it,” he added.

As they flew towards the Moon, the next step was calculating a return home. For this, five trajectories or paths were carved out to help the crew return to Earth.

Gene Kranz, Apollo 13 lead Flight Director, said it was clear by that time that the spacecraft won’t land but go around the Moon.

To deal with the rising carbon dioxide levels, Mission Control devised a way to use canisters in the command module by placing them in the lunar module. They using plastic bag cardboard and tape.

To conserve electricity, the crew shut down most systems. This caused a lot of heat, making sleep impossible in the freezing cold environment. Water condensed inside the spacecraft.

How to get the crew home?

The team was now left with a “dead service module [damaged during explosion], a command module that had no power to it and a lunar module that was a wonderful vehicle” but didn’t have a heat shield. This was the reason the team decided to abandon the lander module upon entry into the Earth.

Before the explosion, Apollo 13’s lander module (carrying the crew) was on the path that would enable it to land on the Moon, taking “it out of a free-return-to-Earth trajectory”.

This meant that the crew was no longer in the path that would allow them to be “swung around the Moon” and come back towards aligning to the landing spot on the Earth.

So, now, the task was to get it back on a free-return course.

Three hours after the explosion, the crew used the Lunar Module’s descent engine to modify their course to a “free-return trajectory” around the Moon — meaning lunar gravity would slingshot them back to Earth.

This looped Apollo 13 around the Moon, using its gravity to aim the spacecraft back towards Earth.

Good to be back!

Soon, a coarse correction pointed the crew towards a safe return to earth.

Four hours before landing, the crew shed the service module. The mission control had insisted on retaining it until then because everyone feared what the cold of space might do to the un-sheltered Command Module heat shield.

The crew finally saw the damage from the explosion—the service module. They prepared for re-entry and jettisoned the Lunar module.

Three hours later, the crew left the lunar module Aquarius and then splashed down gently in the Pacific Ocean near Samoa.

On April 17, 1970, Apollo 13 re-entered the earth’s atmosphere and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean safely. The Apollo 13 spacecraft hovered in the space for exact “five days, 22 hours, 54 minutes, 41 seconds”.

The journey back to earth was not that easy

Originally designed to support two astronauts for two days on the lunar surface, the lander module had to keep three men alive for about four days.

“Water lines froze. The crew ate little and slept even less…Power consumption was carefully controlled,” the Planetary Society explained.

Besides, the team “really threw away the book”. An official had said back then, “We had never powered down the command module in space and had never re-reactivated one.

Upon their return, Lovell, Swigert, and Haise had lost 14, 11, and 6.5 pounds, respectively, over the six-day mission.

Still, Apollo 13 mission was classified as a “successful failure” because of the experience gained in rescuing the crew. “The mission’s spent upper stage successfully impacted the moon,” NASA said.