NASA [Apollo 13]

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Exchanges of congratulatory remarks, handshaking and cigar were all part of the post-recovery environment in the Mission Control room.

In the foreground, Apollo 13 flight directors Gerald Griffin, Eugene Kranz and Glynn Lunney view the activity from their consoles; in the background, Robert Gilruth, Director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, and the first director of Mission control and Deputy Director Christopher Kraft light up cigars (first photograph).

NASA administrator Thomas Paine (center), former Apollo Program Director Samuel Phillips (left), associate NASA administrator George Low (right) and other NASA officials applaud the successful splashdown of the Apollo 13 mission, joining millions of Americans and persons over the world (second photograph).

“To get Apollo 13 home would require a lot of innovation. Most of the material written about our
mission describes the ground-based activities, and I certainly agree that without the splendid people in Mission Control, and their backups, we’d still be up there,” said James Lovell (NASA SP-350, p. 13.2).

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“It’s a little different sitting in the rocket, rather than watching it [...] from the ground, and hearing the announcer, you know, dramatically talk about the countdown. [...] And the launch is a little bit different too, because on the ground you get that vibration in your stomach, whereas in the spacecraft itself, it’s a big rumble. You can hear those valves open up and all that fuel drop down those manifold valves. You know, the pipes are big. You know, you’re burning fifteen tons per second. And so you really go to town, and you can hear that. And that’s a big rumble noise, and off you go,” remembered James Lovell (Chaikin, Voices, p.20).

Apollo 14

Spacecraft: Apollo 14 (CSM Kitty Hawk and LM Antares)
Launch Vehicle: Saturn V
Date: January 31-February 09, 1971
Crew: Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa, Edgar Mitchell

CREW

Alan B. (“Al”) Shepard, Jr. (American; Derry, 1923 - Pebble Beach, 1998), Mission Commander
Shepard was born on November 18, 1923, in East Derry, New Hampshire. He received a B.S. from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1944. He was chosen with the first group of astronauts in 1959 and became America’s first man in space as the Pilot of the Mercury 3 mission, Freedom 7. He was back-up Pilot for Mercury Atlas 9 and then was grounded due to an inner ear ailment until May 7, 1969. He was Commander of the Apollo 14 mission and the fifth man to walk on the Moon. In June 1971 he resumed duties as Chief of the Astronaut Office, the position he had held while grounded. He retired from NASA and the Navy August 1, 1974.

Stuart A. (“Stu”) Roosa (American; Durango, 1933 - Falls Church, 1994), Command Module Pilot
Roosa was born on August 15, 1933, in Durango, Colorado. He received a B.S. in aeronautical engineering from the University of Colorado in 1960. He was chosen with the fifth group of astronauts in 1966. He was the back-up Command Module Pilot for Apollo 14 and 16. He resigned from NASA on February 1, 1976.

Edgar D. (“Ed”) Mitchell (American; Hereford, 1930 - West Palm Beach, 2016), Lunar Module Pilot
Mitchell was born on September 14, 1930, in Hereford, Texas. He received a B.S. in Industrial Management from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1952. He also received a B.S. in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in 1961 and a D.S. in aeronautics and astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1964. He was chosen with the fifth group of astronauts in 1966, and was back-up Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 10 and Apollo 16. He was the sixth man to walk on the Moon. He retired from the Navy and NASA in October 1972.

BACK-UP CREW

The back-up crew members for Apollo 14 were Eugene A. (“Gene”) Cernan (Pilot on Gemini IX-A, back-up Pilot for Gemini XII, back-up LM Pilot for Apollo 7, and LM Pilot for Apollo 10), back-up Commander, Ronald E. (“Ron”) Evans, back-up Command Module Pilot, and Joe H. Engle, back-up Lunar Module Pilot.

MISSION EVENT LIST AND TIMELINE

EVENT DATE & TIME (EST) MISSION TIME
Launch January 31 04:03:02 pm 000:00:00 GET
Translunar injection 06:37:34 pm 002:34:32 GET
CSM-LM docking 09:00:02 pm 004:56:56 GET
Lunar orbit insertion February 4 001:59:43 am 081:56:41 GET
CSM-LM separation 11:50:44 pm 103:47:42 GET
Lunar landing February 5 04:18:11 am 108:15:09 GET
First EVA 09:42:13 am 113:39:11 GET
Second EVA February 6 03:11:15 am 131:08:13 GET
Lunar liftoff 01:48:42 pm 141:45:40 GET
LM-CSM docking 03:35:53 pm 143:32:51 GET
Transearth injection 08:39:04 pm 148:36:02 GET
Splashdown February 9 04:05:00 pm 216:01:58 GET

MISSION PARAMETERS

Duration: 9 days, 0 hour, 2 minutes
Landing site: Fra Mauro
Landing Coordinates: 3.64544 degrees south,
17.47139 degrees West

MISSION OVERVIEW

ALSEP and other instruments deployed. Lunar surface stay-time, 33.5 hours; 67 hours in lunar orbit, with 34 orbits. 2 EVAs of 9 hours, 25 minutes. Third stage impacted on Moon. 42 kg (94 lbs) of materials gathered, using hand cart for first time to transport rocks.

CAMERAS AND ACCESSORIES

Apollo 14 carried a number of cameras for collecting data and recording various aspects of the mission. Two 70mm Hasselblad EL cameras with multiple Zeiss lenses (80mm, 250mm and 500mm), one 16mm Maurer camera with various lenses, a Westinghouse color TV camera and the Hycon Lunar Topographic camera were carried on the Command Module. The Lunar Module carried two 70mm Hasselblad Data cameras with 60mm Zeiss-Biogon lenses, two 16mm Maurer data-acquisition cameras (one with a 10mm lens and one with a 5mm lens), one Westinghouse color TV camera, one B&W Westinghouse back-up TV camera and the 35mm lunar surface close-up stereoscopic Kodak camera.
There were a total of 1342 Hasselblad exposures made on 14 magazines of film (B&W magazines 64/LL, 65/KK, 68/MM, 69/P, 70/Q, 71/T, 75/R; color magazines 66/II, 67/JJ, 72/L, 73/M, 74/N, 76/O, 78/S); 823 images on B&W film and 519 on color film.

(Source: Lunar and Planetary Institute, Apollo Lunar Surface Journal)