Ken Mattingly, who orbited the moon and commanded two NASA shuttle missions, however was additionally remembered by humanity for the flight he did not make — the near-disastrous Apollo 13 mission — died Tuesday in Arlington, Virginia. 87.
His dying was confirmed by Cheryl Warner, a NASA spokeswoman. It didn’t specify the trigger or say whether or not he died at his residence in Arlington or in a hospital there.
Mr. Mattingly, a former Navy pilot with a level in aeronautical engineering, joined NASA in 1966. However his first area flight didn’t come till April 1972, when the area company launched Apollo 16, the subsequent to final manned mission into area. the moon.
He commanded the spacecraft command module in orbit whereas serving as lieutenant colonel, and took in depth images of the lunar terrain and carried out experiments whereas as commander. John W. Younger of the Navy and Lieutenant Colonel Charles M. Duke Jr. of the Air Pressure, after descending on the lunar lander, collected rock and soil samples from the highlands close to the crater generally known as Descartes.
Because the three astronauts made their manner again to Earth, Commander Mattingly stepped exterior the spacecraft — which he named Casper due to the resemblance, at the least to a toddler’s eye, between an astronaut in a cumbersome area go well with and the cartoon character Casper the Pleasant Ghost.
As he maneuvered alongside the railing whereas connected to the spacecraft by a tether, he retrieved two film-bound packages containing pictures of the Moon that he had taken from contained in the capsule for evaluation again on Earth.
When the Apollo program ended, Commander Mattingly headed the Astronaut Help Workplace for the shuttle program, designed to move astronauts to and from the Earth-orbiting Worldwide Area Station.
In the summertime of 1982, he commanded the fourth and remaining check flight of the shuttle Columbia, which accomplished 112 orbits. He was additionally the commander of the primary area shuttle flight carried out for the Division of Protection, a secret mission in January 1985 aboard Discovery.
All of those accomplishments got here after he was virtually eradicated on the final minute from the Apollo 13 mission in April 1970.
It was to orbit the Moon within the command module whereas the commander was in cost. Uncover James A. Lovell Jr. of the Navy and Fred W. Hayes Jr. of the lunar floor.
However NASA eliminated Commander Mattingly from the crew within the remaining days earlier than launch, when blood exams confirmed he had not too long ago been uncovered to rubella from coaching with Colonel Duke, the backup lunar module pilot, who in flip had develop into contaminated from his proximity to the moon. An injured baby at a neighborhood occasion. Commander Mattingly was the one one of many Apollo 13 crew who was discovered to lack antibodies towards the illness.
His co-pilot, John L. Swigert Jr., turned the command module pilot, leaving Commander Mattingly to watch the flight’s progress from mission management.
“Tall and lean, together with his brown hair practically cropped, Mattingly was maybe essentially the most personal man within the astronaut workplace,” Andrew Chaikin wrote in his e book Man on the Moon: The Journeys of the Apollo Astronauts (1994).
Chaiken added that he was additionally “within the depths of the worst despair of his life” after he was faraway from the Apollo 13 module.
However he is not going to be idle.
On the third day of the flight, an oxygen tank explosion within the spacecraft’s service module when it was about 200,000 miles from Earth knocked out energy and oxygen within the command module housing the three astronauts, elevating fears they’d be stranded in area.
In actual fact, Commander Mattingly didn’t contract rubella, and he performed an necessary function within the plan devised by the astronauts and mission management in Houston to get them residence safely.
The three astronauts crammed into the intact lunar module, though it was constructed to accommodate solely two astronauts and was solely designed to land on the Moon after which return to the orbiting mothership.
Commander Mattingly learn out a protracted and detailed checklist of directions that astronauts should observe as they use the lunar lander as a “lifeboat” to get them again towards Earth whereas they’re wanting vitality and meals.
Because the spacecraft and its connected lunar lander approached Earth, the astronauts moved again to the command module, which nonetheless had some battery energy and oxygen and carried the warmth defend wanted for a descent by the ambiance. The badly broken lunar module and repair module have been jettisoned, and the astronauts landed within the Pacific Ocean. They have been transferred by helicopter to the restoration ship, the plane service Iwo Jima.
This horrific incident was recounted within the 1995 Hollywood movie “Apollo 13,” wherein Gary Sinise performed Commander Mattingly.
Thomas Kenneth Mattingly II, identified to his colleagues as Ken, was born in Chicago on March 17, 1936, and grew up within the Miami space, the place his father labored for Japanese Airways.
“I made each mannequin airplane I may discover, and I ate each field of cereal that had a paper airplane reduce out on the again,” he informed NASA in a 2001 oral historical past interview.
His father obtained permits to fly Japanese between Miami and New York. As Mr. Mattingly remembers, “You went up the East Coast from Miami, north and again, it was a protracted day.”
He earned his bachelor’s diploma from Auburn College in 1958, entered the Navy as an ensign, and after incomes his wings in 1960, flew from plane carriers. He joined the Astronaut Corps after attending Check Pilot College at Edwards Air Pressure Base in California.
After the Apollo and Area Shuttle missions, Mr. Mattingly continued to work for NASA within the Nineteen Eighties. He retired from the Area Company and the Navy as a Rear Admiral and continued to work for aerospace firms.
His survivors embody his spouse, Kathleen (Romilly) Mattingly, and his son, Thomas III.
When the film “Apollo 13” was launched, Mr. Mattingly once more raised questions on lacking the flight.
“It was very painful to be informed two days earlier than launch that you simply weren’t going to go, however there was a lot funding on this mission that it was actually the one choice,” he mentioned in an interview with Auburn College.
He added that over time he puzzled what would have occurred if he had been on the airplane. “However I can assure you from an emotional standpoint, I might have most popular to have been there, it doesn’t matter what occurred,” he mentioned.
Alex Troup Contributed to stories.