Apollo 13

7 Pages 1734 Words

interior of the service module and blowing off the bay no. 4 cover. With the oxygen stores depleted, the command module was unusable, the mission had to be aborted, and the crew transferred to the lunar module and powered down the command module.

At 08:43 UT a mid-course maneuver (11.6 m/s delta V) was performed using the lunar module descent propulsion system (LMDPS) to place the spacecraft on a free-return trajectory which would take it around the Moon and return to Earth, targeted at the Indian Ocean at 03:13 UT 18 April. After rounding the Moon another LMDPS burn at 02:40:39 UT 15 April for 263.4 seconds produced a differential velocity of 262 m/s and shortened the estimated return time to 18:06 UT 17 April with splashdown in the mid-Pacific. To conserve power and other consumables the lunar module was powered down except for environmental control, communications, and telemetry, and passive thermal control was established. At 04:32 UT on 16 April a 15 second LMDPS burn at 10% throttle produced a 2.3 m/s velocity decrease and raised the entry flight path angle to -6.52 degrees. Following this the c...