He orbited the moon in 1972 on the Apollo 16 mission after luckily missing Apollo 13.
Ken Mattingly, a Nasa astronaut who is best remembered for helping to bring the damaged Apollo 13 spacecraft safely back to Earth, has died aged 87.
Nasa did not mention where or how Mr Mattingly died. However, The New York Times reported that he died in Arlington, Virginia. He became a national hero in America when he narrowly missed joining the crew of Apollo 13, on which he would have piloted the command module.He was replaced aboard the mission by John Swigert Jr, and despite never contracting the illness he was exposed to, he was on the ground when an oxygen tank on the spacecraft’s service module exploded several days into the mission.
Mr Mattingly, who knew the spacecraft intimately, worked with engineers and others as they analysed the situation and scrambled to find solutions and pass on instructions to the crew.
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