For the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 13 mission, April 11-17, NASA has set up a website that allows spaceflight enthusiasts to experience the entire six-day mission in real-time, complete with video, photos and the actual radio calls between Mission Control and the spacecraft.
The Apollo 13 Real-Time Mission experience allows the user to jump to any point in the mission, or to experience it from start to finish.
The site includes all onboard television and film footage, all mission control film footage, all 144 hours of space-to-ground audio, all of the mission control audio -- a total of 7,200 hours -- and all the press conferences as they happened. You can even choose and isolate which radio chatter you want to hear, such as the flight director or CAPCOM -- the person who communicates with the spacecraft.
RELATED: Apollo 13 by the numbers
Something interesting about the 50th anniversary: all the days of the week are the same. The liftoff happened on Saturday, April 11, 1970. In 2020, April 11 also falls on a Saturday.
If you want to view it as things actually happened, here are some key times to schedule.
- April 11, 2:13 p.m. ET: Liftoff
- April 11, 2:18:32 p.m. ET: Center engine of Saturn V shuts down early
- April 13, 10:08:19 ET: "Houston, we've had a problem."
- April 14, 7:21:33 p.m. ET: Apollo 13 goes behind the moon, loses radio contact
- April 14, 7:46:30 p.m. ET: Apollo 13 reacquires radio contact
- April 14, 9:40:45 p.m. ET: Apollo 13 begins PC+2 burn to pick up speed
- April 15, 11:40:08 a.m. ET: Crew plugs in the CO2 adapter
- April 16, 8:19:41 p.m. ET: Jim Lovell demands time for crew to learn the new checklist
- April 17, 6:23:46 a.m. ET: Jack Swigert begins powering up the command module
April 17, 8:15:06 a.m. ET: Service module jettisoned. Crew gets its first look at the damage.
April 17, 11:41:34 a.m. ET: Lunar module jettisoned
- April 17, 9:52:37 a.m. ET: Re-entry
- April 17, 10:07:44 a.m. ET: Splashdown
NASA also made a real-time website for Apollo 11.