by Benoît Jean

Apollo 13 was to be the third mission to land on the Moon. An explosion in one of the oxygen tanks crippled the spacecraft during flight And the crew were forced to orbit the Moon and return to the Earth without landing. During the time it took to come back to earth, the lunar module "Aquarius" was used as a lifeboat. After having jettisoned the service module, there was only one thing left to do before reentry. Unlike Odyssey, the lunar module Aquarius had no heat shield and was not designed to withstand the fiery plunge into the Earth’s atmosphere. Before they could come home, Lovell, Swigert and Haise would have to say goodbye to the craft that had saved their lives. With Lovell safely inside the command module, the men sealed off the hatchway and then, with a mixture of sadness and gratitude, cast off the lander.

In Mission Control Joe Kerwin radioed an appreciation: "Farewell, Aquarius, and we thank you. By this time, Mission Control was jammed with controllers and off-duty personnel awaiting the outcome of this life-and-death drama. Aquarius burned up in Earth's atmosphere on April 17, 1970.

Drawings from the NASA web site were used to scratchbuild the Lem and the command capsule, mostly made from balsa wood. The LEM with all its angles was quite a challenge to build; because of their size, the legs of the lander were the most challenging to do.

All the circular legs sticks were done by using this wonderful tool. Small anecdote about the LEM legs, the real ones were built at Héroux-Devtek Inc., a company that is just 4 km from my home. All circular parts were turned using pine wood: the engines nozzles, the command capsule and the 4 pads on the legs. The 16 thrust nozzles were made out of toothpicks points. 0.5mm long.

The gold foil was from a chocolate bar, where I first took out the laminated paper before gluing it to the descent stage. The capsule Odyssey was covered with aluminum foil, and then I applied some homemade decals for the windows, doors and nozzles.

Unfortunately I did not have the time to build the Plume deflectors that goes under each thruster and the proximity sensors on the feet.

Image: Another look at Aquarius

Image: From above

Image: From behind

Image: Detaching

Image: Another look

Image: Odyssey

Image: Size comparison