James A. Lovell Jr., the US Navy test pilot and NASA astronaut who commanded the aborted Apollo 13 mission, has died aged 97. NASA said he died on 7 August in Lake Forest, Illinois. “NASA sends its condolences to the family of Capt. Jim Lovell,” the agency said in a statement noting his role in “turning a potential tragedy into a success”. His family confirmed his death.
Lovell was one of the most experienced astronauts of the 1960s. Selected in 1962 as part of NASA’s “New Nine”, he flew four space missions: Gemini 7, Gemini 12, Apollo 8 and Apollo 13. Across those flights he logged 715 hours in space, a record that stood until the Skylab era. He retired from NASA and the Navy in 1973.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1928, Lovell graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1952 and served as a naval aviator and test pilot before joining NASA. He accumulated more than 7,000 flying hours, including in high-performance jets, before moving to the astronaut office.
As command module pilot on Apollo 8 in December 1968, Lovell, with Frank Borman and William Anders, became one of the first three people to fly to and orbit the Moon. Apollo 8’s live broadcast from lunar orbit on Christmas Eve became a fixture. Lovell twice journeyed to the Moon — on Apollo 8 and Apollo 13 — but did not land.
Two years later Lovell was named commander of Apollo 13 in 1970, intended to be the third lunar landing. Fifty-six hours into the flight, about 200,000 miles (320,000km) from Earth, an oxygen tank in the service module exploded, damaging a second tank and knocking out power from several fuel-cell batteries. The landing was abandoned.
The phrase most associated with the crisis entered popular culture as “Houston, we have a problem”. The original exchange was slightly different. Command module pilot Jack Swigert reported first: “Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here.” After Mission Control asked for a repeat, Lovell followed: “Ah, Houston, we’ve had a problem.”
With the command module’s power and oxygen compromised, the crew used the lunar module Aquarius as a lifeboat. A series of course corrections set the craft on a free-return trajectory around the Moon and back to Earth. After nearly six days in space, the three astronauts splashed down safely in the Pacific and were recovered by the USS Iwo Jima.
Lovell later described the mission as a “triumph in another sense” — averting disaster rather than landing on the Moon. He and his crewmates were awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon days after recovery.
Before Apollo, Lovell helped demonstrate techniques that would underpin lunar operations. In 1965 he spent 14 days in orbit on Gemini 7 while Gemini 6A carried out the first crewed rendezvous. In 1966 he commanded Gemini 12 with Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, a mission that refined spacewalking methods and completed a successful docking with an Agena target vehicle.
The story was retold in the 1995 film Apollo 13, adapted from Lost Moon, the book Lovell co-authored with Jeffrey Kluger. Tom Hanks portrayed Lovell; the real Lovell made a cameo as the captain of the recovery ship. The film popularised the shorter line “Houston, we have a problem”.
Away from the spotlight, Lovell pursued business interests after leaving NASA. He settled in Lake Forest, Illinois. His wife, Marilyn, whom he met at school in Milwaukee, died in 2023. He is survived by their four children.
In a brief statement, Lovell’s family said they were “enormously proud of his amazing life and career accomplishments”, adding that his optimism and humour made others feel they could “do the impossible”. NASA’s tribute called him a figure whose “calm strength under pressure helped return the crew safely to Earth”.
Lovell’s death leaves a small band of surviving Apollo-era flyers. His career linked the pioneering Gemini programme with the first flights to the Moon. For many his leadership of Apollo 13 remains a defining example of teamwork between astronauts and engineers in extreme conditions.
