Jim Lovell died Friday at the age of 97, but for years he called north suburban Lake Forest home and forged a deep connection to Chicago's Adler Planetarium.

Astronaut Jim Lovell of Apollo 13 fame died at 97; his leadership is celebrated for averting a lunar mission disaster, marking an end to an era of early US space exploration.

In all, Lovell flew four space missions — and until the Skylab flights of the mid-1970s, he held the world record for the longest time in space.