13 Things That Saved Apollo 13, Part 1: Timing by Na ncy At kinso n on A pril 9, 2 010 Damage to theApollo13 spacecraft from the oxygen tank explosion. Credit: NASA Note: T o celebrate t he 40th anniver sary of the Apollo 13 missio n, for the next 13 days, Universe Today will feature “13 Things That Saved Apollo 13,” discussing different turningpoints of the mission with N ASA eng ineer Jerry Woodfill. Click here for our preview article. Oxygen Tank two in the Apollo 13 Service Module exploded at Mission Elapsed Time (MET) 55 hours and 55 minutes, 321,860 kilometers (199,990 miles) away from Earth. If the tank was going to rupture and the crew was going to survive the ordeal, the explosion couldn’t have happened at a better time. “Not everyone agrees with all the things I’ve come up with in my research,” said NASA engineer Jerry Woodfill who has studied the Apollo 13 mission in intricate detail, “but pretty much everyone agrees on this, including Jim Lovell. The timing ofwhen the explosion happened was key. Much earlier or later in the mission would have preven ted a su ccessful rescue .” If the explosion happened earlier (and assuming it would have occurred after Apollo 13 left Earth orbit), the distance and time to get back to Earth would have been so great that there
