The Apollo Telescope significantly advanced solar science, and observation of the Sun was unprecedented. This was the first time that a repair of this magnitude was performed in space. The first crew deployed a replacement heat shade and freed the jammed solar panels to save Skylab. This deprived Skylab of most of its electrical power and also removed protection from intense solar heating, threatening to make it unusable. The station was damaged during launch when the micrometeoroid shield tore away from the workshop, taking one of the main solar panel arrays with it and jamming the other main array. Astronauts conducted numerous experiments aboard Skylab during its operational life.įor the final two crewed missions to Skylab, NASA assembled a backup Apollo CSM/Saturn IB in case an in-orbit rescue mission was needed, but this vehicle was never flown. The rear of the station included a large waste tank, propellant tanks for maneuvering jets, and a heat radiator. Electrical power came from solar arrays and fuel cells in the docked Apollo CSM. Skylab included the Apollo Telescope Mount (a multi-spectral solar observatory), a multiple docking adapter with two docking ports, an airlock module with extravehicular activity (EVA) hatches, and the orbital workshop, the main habitable space inside Skylab. Three subsequent missions delivered three-astronaut crews in the Apollo CSM launched by the smaller Saturn IB rocket.
This was the final flight for the rocket more commonly known for carrying the crewed Apollo Moon landing missions.
It was launched uncrewed into low Earth orbit by a Saturn V rocket modified to be similar to the Saturn INT-21, with the S-IVB third stage not available for propulsion because the orbital workshop was built out of it. Skylab had a mass of 199,750 pounds (90,610 kg) with a 31,000-pound (14,000 kg) Apollo command and service module (CSM) attached and included a workshop, a solar observatory, and several hundred life science and physical science experiments. A permanent station was planned starting in 1988, but funding for this was canceled and replaced with United States participation in an International Space Station in 1993.