Apr 13

1984 – Landing of STS-41-C .Astronaughts  Robert CrippenTerry HartJames van HoftenGeorge Nelson and Dick Scobee

STS-41-C touches down at Runway 17, Edwards Air Force Base
STS-41-C touches down at Runway 17, Edwards Air Force Base

1970 – “Houston, we’ve had a problem.” The words of astronaut Jack Swigert to Mission Control in Houston after Apollo 13‘s oxygen tank number two, in the service module, exploded. After consulting with Mission Control, Swigert, commander Jim Lovell, and lunar module pilot Fred Haise, Jr., moved into the lunar module, which remained undamaged. The flight continued to and around the Moon and then back to Earth. The whole world watched as the ground crew and spacecraft crew overcame their obstacles and returned the astronauts to Earth unharmed.  Mission duration 5 days, 22 hours, and 54 minutes.

1960 – The United States launches Transit 1-B, the world’s first satellite navigation system.

Annie Jump Canon

1941Death of Annie Jump Cannon notable for devising the stellar classification and who received numerous awards during her lifetime, including honorary membership in the Royal Astronomical Society in 1914 and an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1925. In 1931 the National Academy of Sciences awarded her the Draper Gold Medal. She was also the first woman officer of the American Astronomical Society.

Birthdays

1949 – Jean-Jacques Favier was a German-born French engineer and a CNES astronaut who flew aboard the STS-78 in 1996. Favier was due to fly aboard the doomed Columbia mission in 2003 (STS-107), but later opted out of the mission.

Aurthur Downing
Arthur Downing

1850 – Arthur Matthew Weld Downing was an Anglo-Irish  astronomer known for the calculation of the positions and movements of astronomical bodies, as well as being a founder of the British Astronomical Association. (d. 8 December 1917)