Word: commands
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...problem here." It was the understatement of the space age. Apollo 13 had been rocked by "a pretty large bang" from Odyssey's service module, which houses the spacecraft's main engine as well as most of its life-giving power and environmental systems. Almost immediately, the command module's instruments recorded a surge of electrical current followed by an alarming drop. On Odyssey's instrument panels, red and yellow warning lights flashed on. In Houston, controllers snapped to attention as telemetered data from Apollo 13 began to confirm the magnitude of the problem...
There was more trouble to come. "One of the main electrical circuits is lifeless," Swigert radioed. "It's off. It's dead." The mysterious blast had also affected two of the service module's three fuel cells, which produce the bulk of the command module's vital electrical power. It quickly became obvious that a moon landing was now out of the question; mission rules forbid a lunar landing if even one fuel cell becomes inoperative. The loss of two requires the earliest possible return to earth. Even worse, the second oxygen tank was now also rapidly spilling its precious...
Aboard Apollo, the astronauts remained remarkably cool. Once Mission Control gave the order to begin the "lifeboat mode"?a procedure that had been rehearsed numerous times in ground simulators?Lovell and Haise drifted, like mariners abandoning ship, through the darkened tunnel connecting the command ship with the lunar lander...
...Lovell and Haise powered up the lunar lander, Swigert battened down Odyssey. Using the service module's last few gasps of oxygen and electrical power, he charged up Odyssey's small re-entry batteries, closed off its four back-up oxygen tanks, and transferred the precise alignment of the command module's "platform"?its complex of navigational gyroscopes and accelerometers?to a similar platform in the lunar lander. These last-minute maneuvers were vital to a successful return to earth. Apollo 13 could now be navigated from the lunar module, and the command module was assured of enough spare...
...moment, the men seemed relatively safe. Swigert remained behind in the blacked-out command module, breathing oxygen from the lunar module through a ten-foot-long oxygen hose cannibalized from Haise's space suit. Lovell and Haise meanwhile stood guard over the lunar module's vital systems. Although Apollo 13 was still very much in trouble, there was one consolation: if the accident had to happen, it had occurred when the astronauts and Mission Control could do something about it. Had the service module become disabled later in the mission?during the lunar landing or afterward, when Aquarius had been...