Apollo 13

the successful failure

Not many people know that OMEGA was directly involved in returning the Apollo 13 crew to safety. After a disastrous explosion 1 day into the mission, the world turned their attention to the events as they unfolded. For the 50th anniversary of Apollo 13's safe return, OMEGA celebrated this story with interviews and online film releases featuring Commander Jim Lovell. See more about how the Speedmaster saved the mission below.

The succeful failure (2 min trailer)

Editing: Dario Nucci
Motion gfx: Brett McManus
Music: Simon Ringrose
Voice: Byron Levey

timing the 14 second burn

After a successful launch and fairly uneventful first day, an unexpected explosion on the command module crippled all power, navigation and life-support systems. The astronauts faced a further 3 days to survive a continuous journey around the moon and back. With no guidance systems operational, the pilots relied on a Speedmaster watch to time a series of engine burns correcting their course back to Earth.

The last one in particular was the most critical, and since it had to be done manually, the slightest imprecision could cause them all to either burn up while entering the Earth's atmosphere or bounce off into space.

Click to watch the full 20min version.

THIS MISSION IS REGARDED AS ONE OF NASA'S GREATEST SUCCESS STORIES, AND ONE OF OMEGA'S PROUDEST MOMENTS.

Using archive footage from NASA mixed with CGI and a bit of ingenuity, we were able to recount Apollo 13's extraordinary events. We gave the piece a retro-technical style which modernises the 70's footage yet doesn't distract from the emotion of the event. A few of the key shots were generated new and we added a layer of (factually correct) info-graphics so that the piece is interesting to watch more than once.

Alpha / Studio

apollo 13

the successful failure

The succeful failure (2 min trailer)

timing the 14 second burn