James A. Lovell Jr., the commander of the three-man Apollo 13 spacecraft that survived a near catastrophic explosion as it approached the moon in April 1970, before safely returning to Earth in an extraordinary rescue operation, died on Thursday in Lake Forest, Ill. He was 97.

His death was confirmed by his daughter-in-law, Darice Lovell.

Captain Lovell, a former Navy test pilot, flew for some 715 hours in space, the most of any astronaut in the pioneering Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs forged by the United States as it vied with the Soviet Union to put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s.

He took part in two Gemini missions that orbited Earth and was one of the three astronauts aboard Apollo 8, the first spaceflight to orbit the moon, before he was chosen by NASA for Apollo 13.

The purpose of the mission was to land Captain Lovell and Fred W. Haise Jr. on the moon while the third member of the crew, John L. Swigert Jr., orbited in the spaceship to awaiting their return. They were to explore a spot called Fra Mauro, a highland whose topography could provide important insights into the moon’s geology.

Captain Lovell never realized his dream of reaching the lunar surface. But he became something of a pop culture figure when he was portrayed by Tom Hanks in the 1995 movie “Apollo 13,” which drew on Captain Lovell’s book “Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13” (1994, with Jeffrey Kluger).