The most exciting space flight in human history – Apollo 13.

So here we have the Guinean franc, nominal - 250. The year of issue of this coin is 1970. The obverse of the coin depicts the emblem of the Apollo 13 mission.

Apollo 13 was the seventh crewed mission on April 11 – 17, 1970 in the Apollo space program and the third meant to land on the Moon. The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970.

Early on the evening of April 13, the astronauts pressurized the lunar module Aquarius, and Lovell and Haise passed from the command module Odyssey through the connecting tunnel while checking all systems for the forthcoming landing. Suddenly, as Lovell was moving through the tunnel on his way back from Aquarius to Odyssey, a loud explosion was heard.

All three astronauts quickly gathered in Odyssey to study the instruments in an effort to determine what had happened. Noting that one of the main electrical systems aboard was degrading, Haise and Lovell radioed the information to mission control in Houston, quickly turning a routine flight into one of the most exciting episodes in space history.

Within eight seconds of the explosion, pressure in one of the service module’s two cryogenic oxygen tanks had dropped to zero. Together with the cryogenic hydrogen tanks, they fed the required supplies to the craft’s three fuel cells, which were needed for the generation of electrical power, oxygen for breathing, and drinking water.

The command module of Apollo 13 entered Earth’s atmosphere and splashed down on target on April 17 at 1:07 PM Eastern Standard Time. The mission has been referred to as a successful failure, in that all the crew members survived a catastrophic accident.