Dan Beaumont Space Museum
APOLLO 13 SPLASHDOWN, ABC News, April 17, 1970
Re-entry and splashdown, The crew of Apollo 13 on board the USS Iwo Jima following splashdown As Apollo 13 neared Earth, the crew first jettisoned the Service Module so pictures could be taken for later analysis. It was then that the crew were surprised to see for the first time that the Sector 4 panel had been blown off. According to the analysts, these pictures also showed the antenna damage and possibly an upward tilt to the fuel cell shelf above the oxygen tank compartment. Apollo 13 splashes down in the South Pacific on April 17, 1970. Finally, the crew jettisoned the Lunar Module Aquarius, leaving the Command Module Odyssey to begin its lone re-entry through the atmosphere. The re-entry on a lunar mission normally was accompanied by four minutes of communications blackout caused by ionization of the air around the Command Module. The possibility of heat shield damage from the O2 tank rupture heightened the tension of the blackout period, which took 33 seconds longer than normal.
However, Odyssey regained radio contact and splashed down safely in the South Pacific Ocean, 21°38′24″S 165°21′42″W, southeast of American Samoa and 6.5 km (4.0 mi) from the recovery ship, USS Iwo Jima. The crew was in good condition except for Haise, who was suffering from a serious urinary tract infection because of insufficient water intake. To avoid altering the trajectory of the spacecraft, the crew had been instructed to temporarily stop urine dumps. A misunderstanding prompted the crew to store all urine for the rest of the .[20]. INFO: WIKIPEDIA CUTS
