Skylab 2
| Mission emblem | |||
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| Mission dates | |||
| Mission: | Skylab 2 | ||
| COSPAR-ID : | 1973-032A | ||
| Command module: | CM-116 | ||
| Service module: | SM-116 | ||
| Dimensions: | 9,979 kg | ||
| Launcher: | Saturn IB , serial number SA-206 | ||
| Call sign: | Skylab 2 | ||
| Crew: | 3 | ||
| Begin: | May 25, 1973, 13:00 UTC | ||
| Starting place: | Kennedy Space Center , LC-39B | ||
| Space station: | Skylab | ||
| Coupling: | May 26, 1973, 21:56:00 UTC | ||
| Decoupling: | June 22, 1973, 08:55:00 UTC | ||
| Duration on Skylab : | 26d 10h 59 min | ||
| Number of EVA : | 3 | ||
| Landing: | June 22, 1973, 13:49:48 UTC | ||
| Landing place: |
Pacific 24 ° 45 ′ N , 127 ° 2 ′ W |
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| Flight duration: | 28d 0h 49 m 49 s | ||
| Earth orbits: | 404 | ||
| Recovery ship: | USS Ticonderoga | ||
| Rotation time : | 93.2 min | ||
| Apogee : | 438 km | ||
| Perigee : | 428 km | ||
| Covered track: | 18,536,730.9 km | ||
| Team photo | |||
 v. l. No. Joseph Kerwin, Charles Conrad, Paul Weitz |
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| ◄ Before / After ► | |||
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Skylab 2 ( SL-2 ) was the first crew of the American space station Skylab . The space laboratory had been damaged on launch, so the mission mainly consisted of repair work. A new long-term record was set with a stay of four weeks in space.
The team
Towards the end of the Apollo lunar landing program , NASA announced the three crews for the planned Skylab space station on January 19, 1972. Space veteran Charles Conrad , who has already been in space three times with Gemini 5 , Gemini 11 and Apollo 12, was nominated as the commander of the first crew . With this fourth space flight he would catch up with John Young and James Lovell , who both also had four space flights.
Paul Weitz was used as the pilot . He had no space experience, just like Joseph Kerwin , who completed the team as a science astronaut .
The replacement team was commanded by Russell Schweickart , who was already in space with Apollo 9 . The pilot Bruce McCandless and the scientist Story Musgrave were new to space. Musgrave was the first astronaut in NASA's sixth selection group to be nominated for a flight.
Robert Crippen , Richard Truly , Henry Hartsfield and William Thornton were also permanent members of the team as support crew .
The mission was officially called Skylab 2 , but was often referred to as Skylab 1 because it was the first crew of the space station.
The preparation
The Saturn 1B rocket had not been launched since the flight of Apollo 7 in October 1968 . The launch ramp at that time could no longer be used, so that a ramp in the Kennedy Space Center had to be converted for the manned Skylab launches . The shorter Saturn 1B was placed on a pedestal so that the launch tower intended for the Saturn V could be used.
In order to test the supply facilities of the LC-39B ramp, the assembled AS-206 rocket, albeit with a dummy spaceship , was transported to the launch pad in January 1973. After it was checked that all bridges were correctly positioned and a test refueling was successful, the rocket was returned to the assembly hall, where the Apollo spacecraft was assembled on February 21.
The CSM-116 spacecraft was originally intended for the Apollo 20 moon flight . When this mission was canceled in January 1970, the spaceship could still be converted for the Skylab mission. Since the Apollo spacecraft was shut down at the space station for several weeks, the energy supply could not be provided by fuel cells, so batteries were used again. In addition, various facilities for scientific experiments in the lunar orbit were no longer necessary.
Flight history
Due to the damage that occurred when Skylab 1 was launched, Skylab 2 started on May 25, 1973 ten days late. The new launch pad, on which the relatively small rocket stood on a pedestal, proved its worth.
After ten minutes, the Apollo spaceship, which incidentally did not have its own callsign, was in orbit and five orbits the earth the rendezvous with the space station was carried out. The astronauts flew slowly around Skylab to inspect the damage closely and to transmit television images of it to Earth. As expected, large parts of the micrometeorite shield (which should also have counteracted the heating of the station) and a solar module were missing. The opposite solar module was jammed and not unfolded.
Weitz, standing in the opened Apollo hatch, tried to release the blocked solar module with a long rod with a hook-shaped end. Kerwin held him by the legs while Conrad carefully maneuvered the Apollo spacecraft. However, this attempt failed and consumed a significant portion of the station's attitude control fuel.
Only on the following day did the astronauts transfer to the space station, which was very hot due to the lack of the micrometeorite shield. The team managed to unfold and stretch an umbrella-like heat protection film outside the station through one of the two small locks that had actually been intended for experiments, so that the temperature fell to tolerable levels. This film was developed and manufactured within seven days.
On June 7th, Conrad and Kerwin undertook an outboard operation to free the jammed solar module, which they succeeded after a lot of effort. The space station had no handholds in this part. The astronauts tried to free the module with a rope under which they stood up, but this did not lead to success. Conrad was forced to sever some bent aluminum tabs, then manually pulled on the module and was pushed away by the unfolding boom. From that day on, Skylab was fully functional, albeit warmer than intended.
In the remaining two weeks, the crew carried out various scientific experiments. Another spacecraft mission was carried out by Conrad and Weitz on June 19 to change the film at the solar observatory.
On June 22nd, the crew transferred to the Apollo landing capsule and returned to Earth. Skylab was unoccupied for about a month.
After splashdown before the Pacific -Küste the US, the Skylab crew including the landing capsule aboard the salvage ship was USS Ticonderoga lifted. After the moon flights, the astronauts were first transferred to a rubber dinghy and then lifted into a helicopter . But since it was not yet known how the astronauts would react to gravity after a long stay in space, this method was not used in the Skylab flights.
The whereabouts of the flight hardware
The Skylab 2 command module is located in the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, Florida .
Significance for the Skylab project
This space flight was an important step for manned space travel. Once again it had been shown that man can get a grip on unforeseen events. Without human intervention, the space station would have been lost after a few days.
As it was, the astronauts had lived and worked in the first American space station for four weeks. Most of the furnishings and equipment had proven practical and useful.
Another, but no less important, aspect was that the astronauts had not suffered any damage from their four-week stay in weightlessness. There was nothing to suggest that longer missions could cause problems.
The mission was also a success from a scientific point of view. Not all experiments could be carried out as desired, but if you took into account that valuable time had been lost in the repairs, you could be completely satisfied with the amount of data obtained. The medical experiments were done almost completely, the solar observations about 80% and the earth observations about 60%.
The Apollo spaceship had also proven itself for this type of mission. The break of almost four weeks between the flight there and back had not caused any problems.
For the Americans, the 28 days of Skylab 2 also meant that Soyuz 11's long-term record, which was set in June 1971 with 23 days, was brought back to the United States. In addition, Charles Conrad now also held the record for the longest total stay of a spaceman in space at 49 days.
All of these records should be broken by the second team with Skylab 3 .
See also
literature
The following NASA books (all in English) are available online:
- Skylab, Our First Space Station
- Living and Working in Space: A History of Skylab
- Skylab's Astronomy and Space Sciences
- A New Sun: The Solar Results from Skylab
- Skylab, Classroom in Space (describes the 25 science experiments designed by students)
Also on the NASA History Office website:
- Skylab: A Chronology
- Skylab: A Guidebook
- NASA Investigation Board Report on the Initial Flight Anomalies of Skylab 1
Web links
- Space facts: Skylab 2
- NASA: Video start of Skylab 2 and inspection of the space station (48 seconds; 2.2 MB; MPEG format, silent; MPG )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jesco von Puttkamer: "Skylab" space station - the harvest begins. VDI-Z Volume 116 (1974) No. 16, pp. 1283-1291
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