US astronaut Jim Lovell, Apollo 13 commander, dead at 97

By AFP 8 August 2025, 10:46 pm

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FILE - In a July 13, 2009 file photo, Astronaut Jim Lovell arrives for an event sponsored by Louis Vuitton celebrating the 40th anniversary of the lunar landing at the Museum of Natural History, in New York. In an interview Monday, Feb. 7, 2011, Lovell, commander of the Apollo 13 mission that limped back to Earth after an explosion crippled its flight to the moon in 1970, said compartmentalizing is a way of thinking that helps you survive: "You focus on what has to be done immediately... One by one you overcome each crisis as they come along." (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow, File)

US astronaut Jim Lovell, the commander of the Apollo 13 mission to the Moon which nearly ended in disaster in 1970 after a mid-flight explosion, has died at the age of 97, NASA announces.

“NASA sends its condolences to the family of Capt. Jim Lovell, whose life and work inspired millions of people across the decades,” the US space agency says in a statement, adding that the astronaut died on Thursday in a Chicago suburb.