Obituary: Jim Lovell, astronaut

Jim Lovell commanded Apollo 13, the only Apollo mission scheduled to land on the Moon which did not. Lovell and his fellow astronauts, and the ground crew, overcame incredible odds in bringing the damaged spacecraft of Apollo 13 home to Earth. Photo: Getty Images

Record-setting astronaut Jim Lovell was the first person to fly into space four times. Born in Cleveland and raised in Wisconsin, Lovell was selected as an astronaut by Nasa in September 1962 and would go on to fly four missions — Gemini 7 and 12, Apollo 8 and most famous of all, Apollo 13. Made into a Hollywood film, the Apollo 13 mission launched on April 11, 1970, experienced a failure on the service module on the way to a moon landing. Lovell and his crew were forced to use their lunar module Aquarius as a lifeboat, conserving oxygen to sustain them for the return home, along with enough electricity to make re-entry possible. All three astronauts survived the endeavour. Lovell held the record for time in space with a total of 715 hours and 5 minutes, which was eventually surpassed by the Skylab flights. Lovell was a successful businessman after retiring from the space programme. He died on August 7, aged 97. — Agencies/Allied Media