Category: Orbiter - Orbital Stations
Skylab 2 Mission

File Description:
The Skylab space station was launched May 14, 1973, from the NASA Kennedy Space Center by a huge Saturn V launch vehicle, the moon rocket of the Apollo Space Program. Sixty-three seconds after liftoff, the meteoroid shield--designed also to shade Skylab's workshop --deployed inadvertently. It was torn from the space station by atmospheric drag. This event and its effects started a ten-day period in which Skylab was beset with problems that had to be conquered before the space station would be safe and habitable for the three manned periods of its planned eight-month mission. skylab 2 25 May 1973 13:00 GMT. Duration: 28.03 days. Call Sign: Skylab. Backup Crew: McCandless, Musgrave, Schweickart. Nation: USA. Agency: NASA. Launch Site: Cape Canaveral . Launch Complex: LC39B. Launch Vehicle: Saturn IB . LV Configuration: Saturn IB s/n SA-206. Program: Skylab. Class: Manned. Type: Lunar spacecraft. Spacecraft: Apollo CSM. Payload : Apollo CSM 116. Mass: 19,979 kg. Location of Spacecraft: Naval Aviation Museum, Pensacola, FL. Perigee: 427 km. Apogee: 439 km. Inclination: 50.0 deg. Period: 93.2 min. Epic repair mission which brought Skylab into working order. Included such great moments as Conrad being flung through space by the whiplash after heaving on the solar wing just as the debris constraining it gave way; deployment of a lightweight solar shield, developed in Houston in one week, which brought the temperatures down to tolerable levels. With this flight US again took manned spaceflight duration record.