But on the mission's third day, at 9:07pm CST on April 13, 1970, something happens that causes the world's attention to laser-focus on this little spacecraft and its three occupants. A routine maintenance checklist task results in an explosion of one of the spacecraft's oxygen. This view of the severely damaged Apollo 13 Service Module (SM) was photographed from the Lunar Module/Command Module (LM/CM) following SM jettisoning. Extensive damage is visible from the oxygen tank explosion. Space industry insiders have a love-hate relationship with Ron Howard's 1995 film Apollo 13. The damaged. 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.
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