James Arthur Lovell Jr.

Lovell, James Arthur, Jr. (1928– ), U.S. astronaut who commanded Apollo 13, the spacecraft scheduled to land on the moon in Apr. of 1970. The safety of Lovell and fellow astronauts Fred W. Haise, Jr. and John L. Swigert, Jr. was endangered when an oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13 exploded. The others were forced to cancel the mission and pilot the spacecraft to a premature landing in the Pacific Ocean. Lovell's first space flight, with Frank Borman, was the 14-day earth orbit of Gemini 7 in 1965. Gemini 7 joined in space with Gemini 6 to achieve the first successful space rendezvous. Lovell was also on the crew of Gemini 12 and Apollo 8, which was the first manned craft to orbit the moon.