Nasa ’ s seventh crewed mission of the Apollo space programme was planned to be the third to land a human on the surface of the Moon . As we all now know , the spacecraft malfunctioned , causing serious damage that led to the mission being aborted .

But there remained the small matter of the damaged spacecraft ’ s return to Earth . And this is where the world saw digital twin technology in action – or rather , the world saw the results of it in the form of the crew ’ s safe return . Before that and behind the scenes , scientists worked tirelessly on lab-based models that replicated the space-going vessel , allowing them to make minute-by-minute decisions based on the results seen hundreds of thousands of miles away in Texas . technologymagazine . com 51