The fateful Apollo 13 mission launched 53 years ago (April 11th 1970).
Related to the anniversary there were a number of articles and posts about the mission. I saw a post about the apolloinrealtime.org site and decided to take a look at the Apollo 13 specific. I was blown away by the quality and details of the presentation and website, with its interactive timeline, every mission control channel, related video and helpful transcriptions.
After spendinding several hours watching different parts of the mission I wanted to share my recommendations for where someone interested in the first hand documentation of the event might want to focus their time. I ended up watching maybe 6 hours of the 150 hours of coverage. If you loved the Apollo 13 movie I think you’ll get some goosebumps listening to the actual events as they unfolded.
The launch
Click on the T-Minus 1M button (or go to a ground elapsed time of -000:01:00). I’d recommend watching until they reach orbit at about 000:15:00.
Accident
Picking up at ground elapsed time 055:52:00 you can hear conversations between the crew and ground control. From then until 058:00:00 is a flurry of communication and activity. The full set of mission control ground-to-ground audio channels, plus CAPCOM talking to the crew can be overwhelming at times but helps to express the gravity of the situation and the efforts to identify and resolve. The audio transcriptions are particularly helpful during this period as so many people are talking at the same time.
Re-entry
It wasn’t known whether the explosion had damaged the capsule’s heatshield. If the heatshield were damaged the crew could have struggled for days to get back to Earth only to return and burn up or break up upon re-entry.
Recommend listening at 142:38:00 until 142:50:00.
Why did the oxygen tank explode?
Scott Manley did a great video a few years ago on the root cause of the explosion.
