Skylab

Skylab was the first US orbiting space station. Technical problems arose during liftoff. Vibrations caused a critical meteoroid shield to rip off taking one of the craft's two solar panels with it; a piece of the shield wrapped around the other panel keeping it from deploying. The loss of the shield caused workshop temperatures to rise to 52 deg C (126 deg F). Launch of the crew was delayed for 10 days to develop procedures and crew training to make the workshop habitable. Skylab reentered on July 11, 1979.

Spacecraft
The total dimensions of the Skylab 1 space station is approximately 84 feet long and 22 feet diameter (at widest point).

Payload
Imaging cameras. White-light coronagraph. Ultraviolet scanning polychromator- spectroheliometer. Extreme ultraviolet and X-ray telescope. Space manufacturing experiments. Externally mounted Earth resources instruments included a multispectral imaging camera, an Earth terrain camera, an infrared spectrometer, a multispectral scanner, a microwave radiometer/scatterometer and altimeter, and an L-band microwave radiometer.

Country of Origin	United States
Customer/User	NASA
Size	Multiple Docking Adapter: 17 ft x 10 ft diameter / Apollo telescope Mount: 13 ft x 10 ft diameter / Airlock Module: 18 ft x 10 ft diameter / Instrument Unit: 3 ft x 22 ft diameter / Orbital Workshop: 48 ft x 22 ft diameter
Orbit	400 km circular, 50 deg inclination

Launch Facts

Name	Int'l Desig.	Date	Site	Vehicle	Orbit	Mass(kg)
Notes
Skylab 1	1973-027A	5/14/73	ESMC	Saturn 5	LEO	74783
Skylab 2	1973-032A	5/25/73	ESMC	Saturn 1B	LEO	19979
Carried Pete Conrad, Joe Kerwin, Paul Weitz to Skylab space station
Skylab 3	1973-050A	7/28/73	ESMC	Saturn 1B	LEO	20121
Carried Jack Lousma, Owen Garriott, Alan Bean to Skylab space station
Skylab 4	1973-090A	11/16/73	ESMC	Saturn 1B	LEO	20847
Carried Ed Gibson, Bill Pogue, Jerry Carr to Skylab space station