The Apollo 13 “success story” will celebrate it’s 40th anniversary in April 2010. There have been a number of books, movies and TV shows that tale the amazing story of the disastrous events and amazing rescue of the Apollo 13 astronauts. It has been commonly believed that if the rescue plan had failed the astronauts would have missed earth and be lost in space forever circling in a long orbit. However author Andrew Chaikin, who wrote “A Man on the Moon”, had the trajectory analyzed by Analytical Graphics (AGI). When reviewing the data something unexpected came up. Watch the following video for the  AGI results.
“This animation is narrated by Chaikin, author of “A Man on the Moon.” In the video, he explains how he and AGI engineers used STK software to analyze data from Apollo 13. In doing so, they came up with information that challenged conventional wisdom. Most history books had long speculated that if the Apollo 13 crew had not been able to bring their stranded craft safely back home, they would have orbited Earth indefinitely. Using AGI’s STK software to reenact the event, AGI and Chaikin learned that the crew’s fate would have been far different.”

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