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4d ago

Skylab at 53: The Station That Taught NASA How to Live in Orbit

Anniversary coverage spotlights the on-orbit rescue that shaped later station operations.

The front page of Deseret News from Monday, May 14, 1973, details the launching of Skylab.
Skylab, America's first space station, launched on May 14, 1973. Its highly publicized crash back to Earth - during which is dropped huge chunks of hardware into the Indian Ocean and across Western Australia - took place on July 11, 1979. Image via NASA.
Skylab launches May 14, 1973; the launch was the final use of a Saturn V rocket. Credit: NASA

Overview

  • News outlets published fresh retrospectives Thursday that mark 53 years since Skylab’s May 1973 launch.
  • The station rode the last Saturn V and, at about 170,000 pounds, was the heaviest object yet sent to space at the time.
  • Sixty-three seconds after liftoff, a torn micrometeoroid shield jammed one solar array and the other was lost, which drove temperatures up and forced a repair plan.
  • The first crew launched May 25 after rapid training, freed a stuck array, rigged a sunshade, and enabled three missions that totaled 171 days and 13 hours with 300-plus experiments.
  • Skylab reentered on July 11, 1979, with debris over the Indian Ocean and Western Australia, a moment that drew public focus to reentry risks and informed practices for later stations.