In a Chicago History Museum image, astronauts John Swigert, left, and James Lovell, wave to a crowd that gathered downtown for a parade following the Apollo 13 mission. Lovell, who lived in Lake Forest,

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.

Once America's most experienced astronaut, Apollo 13's Jim Lovell, who died at 97, was the first to visit the moon twice.