He led the three-man crew that survived a near catastrophic explosion in space in 1970, and was later immortalized by Tom Hanks in the movie “Apollo 13.”

James Lovell, the commander of Apollo 13 who helped turn a failed moon mission into a triumph of on-the-fly can-do engineering, has died. He was 97.

His family confirmed his death in a statement to NASA on Friday, Aug. 8 "We will miss his unshakeable optimism, his sense of humor, and the way he made each of us feel we could do the impossible," his family said Astronaut James Lovell Jr.