Apollo 13 (1970)
Like Zond 6, NASA’s Apollo 13 mission can be considered a successful failure. The third Apollo lunar landing attempt had to be aborted following the rupture of a service module oxygen tank two days into the mission. Shortly after, and while the crew of three floated some 200,000 miles (322,000 km) from Earth, NASA astronaut James Lovell famously said: “Houston, we’ve had a problem here.” With oxygen running out, the crew was forced to retreat from the Command Module to the Lunar Module. They worked closely with NASA mission control, improvising new procedures and ways to stay alive. Lovell, along with Jack Swigert and Fred Haise, safely returned to Earth on April 17, 1970.
