The unmanned Saturn Workshop was launched May 14 at 12:30 p.m.

Central Daylight Time (1730 Greenwich Mean Time) atop a Saturn V launch
vehicle from Pad A of Launch Complex 39 at Kennedy SpaceCenter, Florida.
The workshop's initial orbit was 269 miles circular with an inclination to
the equator of 50 degrees.
An hour after launch, ground controllers still were waiting for confirma-
tion that the workshop's solar arrays had deployed, a signal they never
received.
Analysis of launch data showed a failure of the meteoroid shield some 63
seconds into the flight. Slight deployment of one of the two solar array wings,
which provided about half of the electrical power used in Skylab, also was
indicated.
The board appointed to investigate the failures reported on July 19 "Of
several possible failure modes of the meteoroid shield. ..the most probable
...was internal pressurization of its auxiliary tunnel which acted to force the
forward end of the meteoroid shield away from the shell of the workshop and
into the supersonic air stream.
"The breakup of the meteoroid shield, in turn, broke the tie downs that
secured one of the solar array systems. ...Complete loss of this solar array
system occurred at 593 seconds when the exhaust plume of the SolI stage
retro-rockets impacted the partially deployed solar array system."
In the hours after launch, NASA and contractor personnel worked to
salvagethe mission in the face of mounting trouble.
Skylab was maneuvered so its telescope mount solar arrays faced the Sun
to provide as much electricity aspossible. But in this attitude Skylab, without
the meteoroid shield that was to protect against solar heating as well, got too
warm -up to 126 degreesF inside.
Several NASA centers designed various thermal shields of reflective cloth
to protect the workshop's exposed areas from direct sunlight. Three shields
were decided upon -a parasol type to be deployed through an experiments
airlock in the lab was the primary device, a "sail" to be drawn up over a
twin-pole frame, and a similar sail to be deployed from the command module
were alternatives.

Pete Conrad, Joe Kerwin, and Paul Weitz lifted off

Complex 39's Pad B on a Saturn IB at 8 a.m. CDT May
25 after twice being rescheduled.
Rendezvous was in the fifth revolution and, after an
hour and a half of station keeping, the crew docked and
finished preparations for a fly-around inspection and
CONRAD stand-up extravehicular activity (SEVA).
Weitz stood in the open hatch while Kerwin held him
by the legs and Conrad maneuvered the command-service
module. The scientific airlock was reported free of debris,
one solar array system completely gone, the other
deployed 5 to 10 degrees and jammed there by an
aluminum strap.
In the 75-rninute SEVA, Weitz attempted but was
unable to cut or pry loose the strap.
KERWIN
At 10:50 p.m., after five attempts, the crew redocked
with Skylab. They spent the night in the command
module.
The next day, following procedures completed only 2
days before, the crew deployed the parasol sunshade. By
June 4, temperatures inside the orbital workshop were
down to 75 degrees.

WEITZ
 Another power problem occurred May 30 when four
of 18 battery packs in the telescope mount power supply
system showed they were taking less than one-half charge
from the solar arrays, a result of overheating during the
unmanned period.
While the crew continued a power-limited schedule of
experiments and observations, mission support personnel
worked out and tested procedures to free the jammed
solar wing.
Radioed to Sky lab one day, practiced inside the
workshop the next, the procedures were used on Day 14
of the mission, June 7.
Conrad and Kerwin spent about 4 hours and 10
minutes in extravehicuJar activity. They freed the array,
and within hours the electric power supply was such that
a mission close to the original plan was authorized.
On June 19, the 26th mission day, Conrad and Weitz
went EVA for 96 minutes to retrieve film from the
telescope mount. Conrad also reactivated a battery regu-
lator relay -he tapped the case with a hammer.
Splashdown came at 28 days 50 minutes, June 22,
some 830 miles southwest of San Diego, California.
When the three crewmen emerged from their space-
craft on the deck of the recovery ship U S S Ticonderoga, KERWIN: "In the lower body negative pressure device, we all
they appeared wobbly but well, dispelling fears that the experienced some degradation objectively on the measurements of
human body could not function after 4 weeks in the our ability to pool blood. ..in the lower extremities, which is
weightlessnessof space. what lower body negative pressure does."

Kerwin, the medical expert in the crew, said in a

postflight press conference "It was a continuous and The first Sky lab crew recommended increasedexercise
pleasant surprise to me to find out how easy it was to live for those to follow.
In spite of the problems encountered, the first manned
in zero g, and how good you felt."
mission successfully accomplished most objectives estab-
lished for it.

.Some 80 percent of planned solar data was

obtained, with a major. scientific accomplishment
in the monitoring of a solar flare.
.11 of 14 planned Earth resources data runs were
accomplished.
.Data were taken on all scheduled experiments
except those involving the scientific airlock
(through which the sunshadehad been deployed)
or those curtailed by power or weight ljmitations.
.All 16 medical experiments were conducted, and
the time history of man's adaptation to zero g was
obtained for the first time.
.Data were obtained on five student investigations,
with two others rescheduled for the second visit.

Skylab experiments data and film were delivered to

the appropriate principal investigator for analysis or
processing at his direction. In many cases, complete
analysis of data may require years; however, significant
findings are released to scientific journals and the news
media as they occur.
CONRAD: "Okay, Houston, it looks like the meteoroid shield at
the upper thick panel on the SAS plank has wrapped around it just
Sources of photographic prints from experiments f11m
slightly, Now my guess is that our easiest thing to do is just go to or from the general mission photography arelisted on the
the end and try and deploy it," last page of this report.
 The second Skylab manned mission lifted off at 6: II a.m. CDT July 28 with a crew of Al Bean,
Owen Garriott, and Jack Lousma. The trio splashed down 59 days II hours and 9 minutes later,
September 25, near the US S New Orleans, 225 miles southwest of San Diego.
Between those two events was a list of conducted experiments that exceeded the planned
workload by 50 percent. The crew also experienced hardware difficulties beyond those that had
plagued their predecessors.
Early in the mission, one cluster of four reaction control system rockets, then a second,
BEAN developed leaks and had to be deactivated. The RCS quads are used to "steer" the command-service
module in flight. The problem potentially was serious enough that around-the-clock activity was
ordered to prepare a modified command module for a rescue mission. But when the two remaining
quads stayed healthy, and simulations on the ground demonstrated that adequate control was
available with just the two units, rescue preparations were curtailed.
Three EVA sessions were undertaken -the first a marathon 6-hour 31-minute excursion to
deploy an experiment, install solar telescope film, and augment the parasol with the twin-pole
sunshade. The second was 4 hours 31 minutes to change film, deploy experiments, and replace the
faltering rate gyro "6-pack" with a new unit. Garriott and Lousma conducted those EVAs, the first
GARRIOTT
on August 6 and the second on the 24th.
Garriott and Bean spent 2 hours and 45 minutes outside the workshop on September 22,
retrieving film and experiment samples. The film canisters plucked from the telescope mount
contained some 77,600 pictures of the Sun. And fresh film loaded into the solar camerasduring that
last EVA enabled 3 experiments -S052 White Light Coronagraph, S054 X-Ray Spectrographic
Telescope, and S055 W Scanning Polychromator Spectroheliometer -to operate through the 6
weeks of unattended operation, just as they had between the first two missions.

LOUSMA
The crew did experience one situation not encount- By the 10th mission day, the crew was putting in
ered by the first crew -motion sensitivity. It bothered about 19 man-hours a day on scientific experiments, but a
them for the first few days of the mission but, as they week to 10 days later they were doing 27 to 30 man-hours
adapted to weightless flight, the astronauts recovered with of experiments each day.
no after-effects. Their output was such that where 26 Earth resources
experiment passeshad been planned, they actually ac-
complished 39. Data included the developing and decay-
ing stages of tropical storm Christine, drought-stricken
areas of Africa, and the active volcano Etna. The crew
took a look at an incipient severe storm over Oklahoma,
at a fishing operation in the Gulf of Mexico, and at an
Arizona ecological test site.
Some 206 hours of solar viewing had been planned,
305 were logged. Those viewing sessions took in two
major solar flares and numerous coronal transients.
In an already ambitious medical experiment program
of 327 planned runs, 333 were accomplished. Six more
corollary experiment runs than the planned 158 were
carried out, including the first orbital demonstrations of
astronaut maneuvering equipment.
Although student investigations ran behind schedule -
12 planned, 10 conducted -it was one of the high school
student proposals that introduced two new space per-
sonalities. Arabella and Anita, a pair of common cross
spiders, were orbited to demonstrate their ability to spin a
web without the influence of gravity assistingthem.
After a number of shaky starts, Arabella produced an
Earth-like web of creditable symmetry. Anita adapted
more quickly and spun good webs after just a few false
LOUSMA: "Owen's really the EVA record holder, , , , We worked starts. Anita died in space, apparently of starvation, and
a long time, We took our time. We did not get tired at any time, Arabella was found dead of unknown causes after her
even when we didn't have water cooling to assist us," return to Earth.
 While the web formation investigation, one of seven
student experiments assigned to the mission, was con-
ducted for one person -a 17-year old Massachusetts girl
whose proposal was among 25 selected from 3,400-plus
submissions by high school students over the Nation -
other experiments involve substantial numbers and types
of organizations and people.
In Skylab's earth resourcesexperiments alone there are
some 100 American and 42 foreign academic investi-
gators, industrial investigators, and state, Federal, and
foreign government agency representatives.
At Skylab lift-off, more than 270 scientific and
technical investigations were scheduled for one or more of
the three manned missions and even, in some cases,for
unattended operation between missions.
Flight experience brought additional experiments and
scientific demonstrations, some of which used such
easy-to-obtain hardware as a coiled spring toy, a small
gyroscope, and some paper airplanes.
Details on most experiments are contained in "Skylab
Experiments Overview" (Stock No. 3300-0461) available
through the Government Printing Office for $1.75.
Accounts of each mission in greater depth than in this
necessarily brief summary can be found in weekly news
magazines on file in most public and many school
libraries.
For a full report on the missions, inquiry should be
made to the Government Printing Office and the National
Technical Information Service (see back page) on the GAR RIOTT: "AI's customary sleeping position was with his head
availability and purchase price of "Mission Report" and on the floor and his feet on the ceiling, , , he took the light off
the fixture at the top and mounted it down on the floor, , , ,"
"Preliminary Science Report" publications for a given
mission.

GARRIOTT: "Here's a view of Arabella, I guess she received a

little more publicity than we expected. ., , This is one of her LOUSMA: "It took quite a long time to take a shower, We had a
webs, I'm not sure what day it was, but she actually spun more whole 3 quarts to do it with -warm water" , but it was a
symmetrical and better-shaped webs than this." pleasant experience, although it was time-consuming,"
 The third and final manned mission in the program got underway at 8:01 a.m. Central Standard
Time (1401 GMT) November 16 after a 6-day delay to replace cracked stabilizing fins on the launch
vehicle. With the experience of the successful first two Skylab missions to guide them, crewmen
Gerald Carr, Ed Gibson, and Bill Pogue were prepared to stay aslong as 84 days in space,nearly as
long asthose previous missions combined.
One task assigned Skylab 4 was observation and documentation of the newly discovered Comet
Kohoutek. Because the comet never achieved the size or the brightness predicted for it, many
Earth-bound viewers were disappointed. But the astronauts had a different reaction. CARR
"Hey, I see the comet! There's the tail. Holy cow!" That was Gibson ashe beganhis spacewalk
of December 29 to photograph Kohoutek. Carr, outside too, agreed. "Beautiful!" The comet had
looped around the Sun the day before and, at that time, Dr. Lubos Kohoutek used the Houston
communication facilities to ask that the crew try to observe certain characteristics of his namesake.
"The comet's got a spike and a tail," Gibson confirmed. "That spike is very evident. It is not 180
degreesout from the tail, but more like 160 degrees. It is yellow and orange. ..just like a flame. It
seemsto be the same distance out as the tail, and there is a diffuse amount of material which goes
out and joins up with the tail."
GIBSON
The December 29 EVA by Carr and Gibson lasted 3 hours and 28 minutes. On Christmas Day,
Carr and Pogue conducted a 7-hour I-minute walk in space to carry out several experiments, to
retrieve some equipment and film, and to photograph the comet as it approached the Sun.
The first extravehicular activity by the crew also occurred on a holiday, Thanksgiving Day,
November 22, when Pogue and Gibson put in 6 hours and 33 minutes to deploy experiments, load
fresh film into the cameras,and repair a jammed antenna. On February 3, Carr and Gibson teamed
up againto retrieve the last of the film and experiments in as-hour 19-minute EVA.
The crewmen of the third manned mission experienced
two kinds of growth, spiritual and physical, during the 84 POGUE
days of their flight. Carr said "I think this mission is going to ...increase
During a 30-minute space-to-Earth news conference on my awareness. ..of what else is going on besides what
January 2, they spoke of changes of "almost a spiritual I'm doing."
nature" in their attitudes toward themselves and their In Gibson's view, "Being up here and being able to see
fellow be!ngs, ev~n in their views on possible life the stars and look back at the Earth and seeyour own Sun
elsewhereIn the umverse. as a star makes you. ..realize the universe is quite big,
and just the number of possible combinations. ..which
can create life enters your mind and makes it seemmuch
more likely."
Pogue felt that "I now have a new orientation. ..of
almost a spiritual nature. My attitude toward life is going
to change, toward my family it's going to change. When I
see people, I try to see them as operating human beings
and try to fit myself into a human situation instead of
trying to operate like a machine."
Their views reflected those of others who have flown
in space.
The physical growth also had been experienced,
though almost unnoticed, by previous crews, but this was
the first flight on which proper measuring devices were
flown. The height increase -each man gained 1 to 2
inches -was accompanied by a loss of some muscle mass
as the body adjusted to zero-gravity, and body fluids were
redistributed accordingly.
In the weightless environment, the body's calves and
thighs reduce in size as fluids move up from the legs;
without the pull of gravity, the spinal column stretches
GIBSON: '" have not had a chance to work the ATM panel this ~nd-1he chest and abdomen reduce, but the slim-and-trim
roorning, but as of last night that region was still fairly bright. ..
look does not last. Carr, Gibson, and Pogue lost most of it
it looked as though something was happening, but' guess. .. on their return to Earth and were completely back to
there is no sunspot." normal several days after splashdown.
 Before they left the laboratory, the crew configured it
for a possible revisit "by somebody in the future whether
that be ASTP (Apollo-Soyuz Test Project), or Soviets, or
green men, or what-have-you" in the words of the mission
director.
Because any possible revisit will be to inspect the
external condition of the space station and to retrieve
samples, the crew was directed to leave in the multiple
docking adapter a bag containing:

.Samples of four types of photographic film and

eight camera filters;
.Three of each of five types of food -rehydratable,
thermostabilized, bread, pudding, and beverage;
.A sample of material from any piece of clothing
and from any wrist or waist tether, and a surgical
glove;
.One roll of teleprinter paper and four samples from
a flight data book;
.A heater fan, short lengths of electrical cable, a fire
sensor control unit, and a crewman communica-
tions umbilical control head.

Then a service module reaction control system burn

nudged Skylab into an orbit about 280 miles high with a
nominal 10-year lifetime, and the third manned mission
ended in its l214th revolution of Earth -the second crew
CARR: "I think we've got it now. ..the bird flies real well, and I
turned 858 revolutions, the first 404.
think it will be a real pleasure to work from now on, and we'll get
(Although distance traveled in orbit is not especially the kinks worked out of the procedures."
significant in itself, those who want such data can use an
average orbital velocity of 17,090 miles per hour to
determine mileage for any phase of the mission.)
Splashdown was at 10:18 CDT February 8 after 84
days, I hour, and 17 minutes. The crew was recovered
some 155 miles southwest of San Diego by the USS New
Orleans. .

CARR: "Right up here is where it all started. ..Merritt Island. ..

Cocoa Beach. Right there is Patrick Air Force Base. We never CA R R: "We got one fold in the sail. ..that apparently has
failed to take a picture of where it all started any time we got over opened up recently, and it's a whole lot lighter color, a lot whiter
it." than all the rest of the folds in the accordian pleats in the sail."
 These are sources of information and materials not The Office of Manned Space Flight, NASA Headquarters,
available through the NASA centers involved in Skylab. Washington, D.C. 20546 directed, integrated, and evalu-
Inquiry should be made directly to the appropriate source ated the overall Skylab program.
to determine availability, time required to fill, and price
and method of payment -never send cash for any mail Responsibilities assignedto NASA centers were:
order.
The worldwide tracking and communications network
Goddard Space Flight Center
Mission reports and preliminary science reports Greenbelt, MD 20771
National Technical Information Service
Development of the modified Apollo command and
Springfield, VA 22151 and/or service modules; development of assigned experiments,
crew systems, medical equipment, food, and other crew-
Government Printing Office
support hardware; crew training and mission planning;
Washington, DC 20402
mission control.
Generalmissionphotography: Johnson Space Center
Houston, TX 77058
SpacePhotographs
P.O.Box 486 Launchfacilities and operations,and prelaunchcheckout.
Bladensburg,MD 20710
KennedySpaceCenter
FL 32899
Earth Resourcesphotography:
EROS Data Center Development of orbital workshop, airlock module, multi-
10th and Dakota Avenue ple docking adapter, Apollo telescope mount, and payload
Sioux Falls, SD 57198 shroud; developmcnt and integration of assigned experi-
ments and support systems; Saturn launch vehicles, and
Solar experiments data and photography: overall systemsintegration.
X-ray/UV Solar Photography Experiment Marshall Space Flight Center
S020, Coronal Spectroheliograph S082A Huntsville, AL 35812
and Chromospheric Spectrograph S082B
U.S. Naval ResearchLaboratory Support in the. areas of recovery, weather reporting
Washington, DC 20390 communications and bioastronautics were provided by
Manned Space Flight Support Operations
White Light Coronagraph S052 Department of Defense
High Altitude Observatory Air Force Eastern Test Range
Boulder, CO 80302 FL 32925

X-ray Spectrographic Telescope S054 Major contractors for the Skylab program were
American Science and Engineering The Boeing Company
955 MassachusettsAvenue Seattle, WA 98124
Cambridge, MA 02139
Chrysler Corporation
H-Alpha Telescopes New Orleans, LA 70129
Harvard College Observatory
60 Garden Street Martin Marietta Corporation
Cambridge, MA 02138 Denver,CO 80201

Audio tape higWights of air-to-ground transmissions (the McDonnellDouglasCorporation

conversation between Mission Control and the crew): St. Louis,MO 63166
NASA Headquarters
Washington, DC 20546 Rockwell International Corporation
Attn: Code FP Downey, CA 90241

* U.S. GOVERNMENT
PRINTING
OFFICE:1977-771.015/1734