American astronaut Jim Lovell, commander of the failed 1970 mission to the moon that nearly ended in disaster but became an inspirational saga of survival and the basis for the hit movie "Apollo 13," has died at the age of 97,

CHICAGO (AP) — 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. Lovell died Thursday in Lake Forest, Illinois, NASA said in a statement on Friday.

The splashdown off San Diego closed out a 148-day mission for two NASA astronauts, a Japanese flier and a Russian cosmonaut.

Four astronauts from NASA's Crew-10 mission departed the International Space Station on Friday aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule, heading for a splashdown off the U.S. West coast Saturday morning after a five-month crew rotation mission at the orbiting lab.