Ken Mattingly, a Nasa astronaut who is best remembered for helping to bring the damaged Apollo 13 spacecraft safely back to Earth, has died aged 87.

Nasa administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement: “We lost one of our country’s heroes on October 31.”

Mr Nelson described the hero astronaut as a “key to the success of our Apollo Program” adding “his shining personality will ensure he is remembered throughout history”.

Nasa did not mention where or how Mr Mattingly died. However, The New York Times reported that he died in Arlington, Virginia.

Obit Ken Mattingly
Mr Mattingly commanded two space shuttle missions and retired from the agency and the Navy as a rear admiral (Carlos Javier Sanchez/AP, File)

A former Navy pilot, Mr Mattingly joined Nasa in 1966. He helped with the development of the spacesuit and backpack for the Apollo moon missions, Nasa said.

He became a national hero in America when he narrowly missed joining the crew of Apollo 13, on which he would have piloted the command module.

He was pulled from the mission a few days before launch after being exposed to German measles.

He was replaced aboard the mission by John Swigert Jr, and despite never contracting the illness he was exposed to, he was on the ground when an oxygen tank on the spacecraft’s service module exploded several days into the mission.

The explosion knocked out most of the power and oxygen to the command module, causing Nasa to abandon the lunar landing.

Instead, a rescue mission was launched to save Mr Swigert, James Lovell and Fred Haise on board Apollo 13.

Mr Mattingly, who knew the spacecraft intimately, worked with engineers and others as they analysed the situation and scrambled to find solutions and pass on instructions to the crew.

The trio of astronauts eventually crowded into the lander, which was designed for only two, and used it as a lifeboat for four days as Apollo 13 swung around the moon and then landed safely on Earth.

Mr Nelson said Mr Mattingly “stayed behind and provided key real-time decisions to successfully bring home the wounded spacecraft and the crew”.

Mr Mattingly’s first spaceflight came in 1972 when he orbited the moon as pilot of the Apollo 16 command module while two other crew members landed on the moon’s surface.

On the trip back to Earth, Mr Mattingly spacewalked to collect film canisters with photographs he had snapped of the moon’s surface.

In later years, Mr Mattingly commanded two space shuttle missions and retired from the agency and the Navy as a rear admiral.