450 a
Jack Swigert, Fred Haise, or James Lovell

The Earth seen from the farthest distance in space ever travelled by a manned crew

Apollo 13, April 11-17, 1970

Vintage chromogenic print on fiber-based Kodak paper, 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in), “A Kodak Paper” watermarks on the verso, numbered “NASA AS13- 62-8904” (NASA MSC) in red in top margin

450 b
Jack Swigert or Fred Haise

The limb of the Moon’s farside at sunset

Apollo 13, April 11-17, 1970

Unreleased photograph, vintage chromogenic print on fiber-based Kodak paper, 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in), with “A Kodak Paper” watermarks on the verso, numbered “NASA AS13-60-8605” (NASA MSC) in red in top margin

450 c
Jack Swigert or Fred Haise

The farside lunar horizon appearing under the spacecraft

Apollo 13, April 11-17, 1970

Unreleased photograph, vintage chromogenic print on fiber-based Kodak paper, 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in), with “A Kodak Paper” watermarks on the verso, numbered “NASA AS13-60-8609” (NASA MSC) in red in top margin

450 d
Jack Swigert or Fred Haise

Crater Chaplygin seen from the spacecraft rounding the farside of the Moon

Apollo 13, April 11-17, 1970

Unreleased photograph, vintage chromogenic print on fiber-based Kodak paper, 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in), with “A Kodak Paper” watermarks on the verso, numbered “NASA AS13-60-8611” (NASA MSC) in red in top margin
20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in)

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Lot Essay

450 a
This photograph was taken through the 60mm lens before the spacecraft rounded the farside of the Moon.

Following the free-return trajectory, the altitude of Apollo 13 over the lunar farside was approximately 100 km (54 nautical miles) greater than the orbital altitude on the remaining Apollo lunar missions. It holds the absolute altitude record for a manned spacecraft, reaching a distance of 400,171 km (216,075 nautical miles) from Earth on 7:21 pm EST, April 14, 1970.

From the mission transcript as the spacecraft was approaching the backside of the Moon:

077:06:09 Lovell: Go ahead, Houston.
077:06:11 Brand (Mission Control): Okay, Jim. We have a little over 2 minutes until LOS (Loss of Signal), and everything’s looking good here.
077:06:21 Lovell: Roger. Yes. I take it that we don’t have to start our activations until we receive AOS (Acquisition Of Signal) from you.
077:06:39 Brand: Roger. That’s correct. Comm break.
077:07:00 Public Affairs Officer (Mission Control): Apollo 13 now 421 nautical miles [780 km] above the Moon. Just a little over 1 minute now from time of Loss Of Signal with the spacecraft. This is Apollo Control, Houston; 77 hours, 7 minutes.
077:09:00 Public Affairs Officer (Mission Control): We’ve had Loss Of Signal with Apollo 13 as it passes above the back side of the Moon. We’re at 77 hours, 9 minutes now into the flight of Apollo 13.

450 b
Apollo 13 looped behind the Moon and was out of contact with the Earth tracking stations between 077:08:35 and 077:33:10 GET, a total of 24 minutes 35 seconds.

This fantastic photograph was taken through the 250mm telephoto lens as the spacecraft was in the shadow of the Moon and approached the lunar farside terminator (boundary between day and night on the Moon).

From the mission transcript as the spacecraft entered in the shadow of the Moon:

076:42:07 Lovell: We might need a spare flashlight: have you got one? Okay. Okay. The Sun has gone [garble] down. [Pause.]
076:42:31 Lovell: Man, look at those stars. Houston.
076:42:40 Brand: Go ahead, Aquarius.
076:42:45 Lovell: Roger. We are in the shadow of the Moon now. The Sun is just about set as far as I can see and the stars are all coming out.

450 c
Following the free-return trajectory, the altitude of Apollo 13 over the lunar farside was approximately 100 km (54 nautical miles) greater than the orbital altitude on the remaining Apollo lunar missions, resulting in particularly striking photographs of the lunar farside.

This photograph was taken through the 250mm telephoto lens looking southwest toward the lunar farside horizon.
The southern portion of the 81-km Crater Dellinger is visible in the right foreground; the 81-km Crater Chauvenet is the largest crater in the center with the 48-km Crater Chauvenet C intruding into the interior.

“We really didn’t have anything to do in that pass, and we lost communication with the ground for a portion of that, behind the Moon. And our next maneuver coming up was after we passed around the Moon, plus two hours. And we were kind of ahead of the timeline in preparation for that maneuver. So we really didn’t have much to do except to look, and shoot pictures,” remarked Fred Haise (Chaikin, Voices, p. 146).

450 d
This photograph taken during the spacecraft’s closest approach to the Moon looking south through the 250mm telephoto lens provides a great view of the floor and wall of the 122-km Crater Chaplygin.

“As we approached the Moon, the ground informed us that we would have to use the LM descent engine a second time; this time a long 5-minute burn to speed up our return home.
The maneuver was to take place two hours after rounding the far side of the Moon, and I was busy running down the procedures we were to use. Suddenly, I noticed that Swigert and Haise had their cameras out and were busy photographing the lunar surface. I looked at them incredulously and said, ‘If we don’t make this next maneuver correctly, you won’t get your pictures developed!’ They said, ‘Well, you’ve been here before and we haven’t.’ Actually, some of the pictures these tourists took turned out to be very useful,” remembered James Lovell (NASA SP-350, p. 13.4).