The mission began with a little-known smaller incident:
            during the second-stage boost, the center (inboard) engine shut down two minutes early.
            The four outboard engines burned longer to compensate, and the vehicle continued to a
            successful orbit. The shutdown was determined to be due to dangerous pogo
            oscillations that might have torn the second stage apart. The engine
            experienced 68g vibrations at 16 hertz, flexing the thrust frame by
            3 inches (76 mm). The engine shutdown was triggered by sensed thrust chamber pressure
            fluctuations. Smaller pogo oscillations had been seen on previous Titan and Saturn
            flights (notably Apollo 6), but on Apollo 13 they were amplified by an unexpected
            interaction with turbopump             href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavitation">cavitation. Later missions
            implemented anti-pogo modifications that had been under development. These included
            addition of a helium gas reservoir to the center engine             href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_oxygen">liquid oxygen line to
            dampen pressure oscillations, an automatic cutoff as a backup, and simplification of the
            propellant valves of all five second-stage engines.
En
            route to the Moon, approximately 200,000 miles (320,000 km) from Earth,             title="Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center"
            href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_B._Johnson_Space_Center">Mission
            Control asked the crew to turn on the hydrogen and oxygen tank stirring fans,
            which were designed to destratify the             href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryogenic">cryogenic contents and
            increase the accuracy of their quantity readings. Approximately 93 seconds later the
            astronauts heard a loud "bang", accompanied by fluctuations in electrical power and
            firing of the attitude control thrusters. The crew initially thought that a             title="Meteoroid" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteoroid">meteoroid
            might have struck the             href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Lunar_Module">Lunar Module
            (LM).
In fact, the number 2 oxygen tank, one of two in
            the             href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_service_module">Service Module
            (SM), had exploded. Damaged             href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytetrafluoroethylene">Teflon
            insulation on the wires to the stirring fan inside oxygen tank 2 allowed the wires
            to             href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_circuit">short-circuit and ignite
            this insulation. The resulting fire rapidly increased pressure beyond its 1,000 pounds
            per square inch (6.9 MPa) limit and the tank dome failed, filling the fuel cell bay
            (Sector 4) with rapidly expanding gaseous oxygen and combustion products. It is also
            possible some combustion occurred of the             href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mylar">Mylar/            href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapton">Kapton thermal insulation
            material used to line the oxygen shelf compartment in this
            bay.
The resulting pressure inside the compartment popped
            the bolts attaching the Sector 4 outer aluminum skin panel, which as it blew off
            probably caused minor damage to the nearby high-gain             href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_S-Band">S-band antenna used for
            translunar communications. Communications and telemetry to Earth were lost for 1.8
            seconds, until the system automatically corrected by switching the antenna from
            narrow-band to wide-band mode.
Mechanical shock forced the
            oxygen valves closed on the number 1 and number 3 fuel cells, which left them operating
            for only about three minutes on the oxygen in the feed lines. The shock also either
            partially ruptured a line from the number 1 oxygen tank, or caused its check or relief
            valve to leak, causing its contents to leak out into space over the next 130 minutes,
            entirely depleting the SM's oxygen supply.
Because the fuel
            cells combined hydrogen and oxygen to generate electricity and water, the remaining fuel
            cell number 2 finally shut down and left the             href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Command/Service_Module#Command_Module_.28CM.29">Command
            Module (CM) on limited-duration battery power. The crew was forced to shut
            down the CM completely and to use the LM as a "lifeboat". This had been suggested during
            an earlier training simulation but had not been considered a likely scenario. Without
            the LM, the accident would certainly have been fatal.
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