This month we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the historic Apollo 13 mission. In our weekly History Up Close video series, we are featuring Apollo 13 artifacts. This week, we are exploring the Lunar Module Plaque Replica.
Each of the Apollo LMs bore a curved plaque around one of the legs of the spacecraft. The plaque listed the mission, spacecraft name, date and each crew member. This is a replica of the plaque intended for the Apollo 13 LM, Aquarius, which was to replace the original plaque already bolted to the LM.
The original plaque bore the name of astronaut T.K. Mattingly who was replaced by Jack Swigert two days before the mission launch because Mattingly was inadvertently exposed to German measles.