Apollo 13 was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo space program and the third intended to land on the Moon. Launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, the mission aborted its lunar landing after an oxygen tank in the service module failed two days into the flight. Commanded by Jim Lovell, with Jack Swigert as command module pilot and Biloxian Fred Haise as lunar module pilot, the crew looped around the Moon and returned safely to Earth on April 17. Swigert had replaced Ken Mattingly, who was grounded after exposure to rubella. A routine stir of the cryogenic tanks caused an electric short linked to damaged wiring insulation in Oxygen tank 2, and both oxygen tanks were eventually depleted, cutting off primary electrical power from the fuel cells. For the first time, the command and service module had to be shut down in flight to preserve the three small batteries needed for entry, and the crew moved into the lunar module, which served as a lifeboat. With the landing canceled, Mission Control in Houston improvised procedures to keep three men alive for four days in a craft designed to support two men for two days on the lunar surface. The crew endured severe hardship from limited power, a cold and wet cabin, and freezing temperatures, and they and mission controllers successfully improvised a way to adapt the command module's carbon dioxide scrubber cartridges for use in the lunar module. The astronauts' danger briefly renewed public interest in the Apollo program, and many millions watched the splashdown in the South Pacific Ocean on television. An accident board later found errors in preflight preparations that had led to the wiring insulation damage in Oxygen tank 2 and recommended changes, including reducing potentially combustible items inside the tank, which were implemented for Apollo 14. The mission's story was later dramatized several times, especially in the 1995 film "Apollo 13," based on "Lost Moon," the 1994 memoir co-authored by Lovell.
