Astronaut Jim Lovell, the commander of Apollo 13 Moon Mission, who guided the Apollo 13 safely back to Earth in 1970, has died on Thursday in Lake Forest, Illinois, US. He was 97.
NASA said in a statement that he had turned a potential tragedy into a success after an attempt to land on the Moon was aborted because of an explosion onboard the spacecraft while it was hundreds of thousands of miles from Earth. Acting NASA head Sean Duffy said Lovell had helped the US space programme to forge a historic path.
Tens of millions watched on television as Lovell and two other astronauts splashed back down into the Pacific Ocean, a moment which has become one of the most iconic in the history of space travel.
Lovell, who was also part of the Apollo 8 mission, was the first man to go to the Moon twice but never actually landed. One of NASA’s most traveled astronauts in the agency’s first decade, Lovell flew four times, Gemini 7, Gemini 12, Apollo 8 and Apollo 13 with the two Apollo flights riveting the folks back on Earth.
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