W. W. Collins

“Apollo 13 was launched on 11 April 1970. It was to become the third manned spacecraft to land on the Moon, with a mission to explore formations near the 80 km (50 mile) wide Fra Mauro crater. The flight was commanded by James A. Lovell with John L. ‘Jack’ Swigert as Command Module pilot and Fred W. Haise as Lunar Module pilot. There was a small problem on takeoff when an engine shut down two minutes early during the second stage boost. But four other engines burned longer to compensate, and the craft reached orbit successfully. Then, on 14 April 1970, nearly sixty hours into the mission, the astronauts were 321,860 km (199,995 miles) from Earth when they heard a loud bang.””