Skylab 2 - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Backup crew

Support crew

Robert L. Crippen
Robert Crippen
Robert Laurel Crippen is an engineer, retired United States Navy Captain and a former NASA astronaut. He flew on four Space Shuttle missions, including three as commander...
Richard H. Truly
Henry W. Hartsfield, Jr
Henry Hartsfield
Henry Warren "Hank" Hartsfield, Jr. is a retired United States Air Force officer and a former USAF and NASA astronaut who logged over 480 hours in space.-Personal:...
William E. Thornton
William E. Thornton
William Edgar Thornton is a former NASA Astronaut. Thornton was born in Faison, North Carolina, and is married with two sons to the former Elizabeth Jennifer Fowler of Hertfordshire, England.-Education:...

Mission parameters

Mass: 19,979 kg
Maximum Altitude: 440 km
Distance: 18,536,730.9 km
Launch Vehicle: Saturn IB

Perigee
Perigee
Perigee is the point at which an object makes its closest approach to the Earth.. Often the term is used in a broader sense to define the point in an orbit where the orbiting body is closest to the body it orbits. The opposite is the apogee, the farthest or highest point.The Greek prefix "peri"...

: 428 km
Apogee: 438 km
Inclination
Inclination
Inclination in general is the angle between a reference plane and another plane or axis of direction.-Orbits:The inclination is one of the six orbital parameters describing the shape and orientation of a celestial orbit...

: 50°
Period
Orbital period
The orbital period is the time taken for a given object to make one complete orbit about another object.When mentioned without further qualification in astronomy this refers to the sidereal period of an astronomical object, which is calculated with respect to the stars.There are several kinds of...

: 93.2 min

Docked: May 26, 1973 - 21:56:00 UTC
Undocked: June 22, 1973 - 19:48:07 UTC
Time Docked: 26 days, 21 hours, 52 minutes, 7 seconds,

Space walks

Weitz - EVA 1 - (stand up EVA - CM side hatch)
EVA 1 Start: May 26, 1973, 00:40 UTC
EVA 1 End: May 26, 01:20 UTC
Duration: 40 minutes

Conrad and Kerwin - EVA 2
EVA 2 Start: June 7, 1973, 15:15 UTC
EVA 2 End: June 7, 18:40 UTC
Duration: 3 hours, 25 minutes

Conrad and Weitz - EVA 3
EVA 3 Start: June 19, 1973, 10:55 UTC
EVA 3 End: June 19, 12:31 UTC
Duration: 1 hour, 36 minutes

Mission highlights

Launched on May 25, 1973, the first Skylab crew's most urgent job was to repair the space station. Skylab's meteorite-and-sun shield and one of its solar array

Photovoltaic module

A solar panel is a packaged, connected assembly of solar cells, also known as photovoltaic cells...

s had torn loose during launch, and the remaining primary solar array was jammed. Without its shield, Skylab baked in the sunshine. The crew had to work fast, because high temperatures inside the workshop would release toxic materials and ruin on-board film and food.

As Conrad flew their Apollo Command/Service Module

Apollo Command/Service Module

The Command/Service Module was one of two spacecraft, along with the Lunar Module, used for the United States Apollo program which landed astronauts on the Moon. It was built for NASA by North American Aviation...

(CSM) near the station, Weitz unsuccessfully attempted to deploy the surviving solar array from the CSM's hatch while Kerwin held onto his legs. The astronauts found that their tools were inadequate, and had to use a backup method to dock the CSM to Skylab after several other methods failed. From inside, they deployed a collapsible parasol with telescoping rods as a replacement sunshade. The fix worked, and temperatures inside dropped low enough for the crew's comfort. Two weeks later Conrad and Kerwin freed the stuck solar panel on a second EVA, increasing the electricity flowing to their new home. Without power from the panel, the second and third Skylab missions would have been unable to perform their main experiments, and the station's critical battery system would have been seriously degraded.

For nearly a month they made further repairs to the workshop, conducted medical experiments, gathered solar and Earth science data, and performed a total of 392 hours of experiments. The mission tracked two minutes of a large solar flare

Solar flare

A solar flare is a sudden brightening observed over the Sun surface or the solar limb, which is interpreted as a large energy release of up to 6 × 1025 joules of energy . The flare ejects clouds of electrons, ions, and atoms through the corona into space. These clouds typically reach Earth a day...

with the Apollo Telescope Mount

Apollo Telescope Mount

The Apollo Telescope Mount, or ATM, is the name of a solar observatory that was attached to Skylab, the first US space station.The ATM was one of a number of projects that came out of the late 1960s Apollo Applications Program, which studied a wide variety of ways to use the infrastructure...

; they took and returned some 29,000 frames of film of the sun. The Skylab 2 astronauts spent 28 days in space, which doubled the previous U.S. record. The mission ended successfully on June 22, 1973, when Skylab 2 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean 9.6 km from the recovery ship USS Ticonderoga

USS Ticonderoga (CV-14)

USS Ticonderoga was one of 24 s built during World War II for the United States Navy. The ship was the fourth US Navy ship to bear the name, and was named for historic Fort Ticonderoga, which played a role in the American Revolutionary War...

. Skylab 2 set the records for the longest duration manned spaceflight, greatest distance traveled and greatest mass docked in space. Conrad set the record for most time in space for an astronaut.

Mission insignia

The Skylab Expedition 1 patch was designed by Kelly Freas

Frank Kelly Freas

Frank Kelly Freas , called the "Dean of Science Fiction Artists", was a science fiction and fantasy artist with a career spanning more than 50 years.-Early life, education, and personal life:...

, a well-known artist highly regarded in the science fiction community, who was suggested to NASA by science fiction author and editor Ben Bova

Ben Bova

Benjamin William Bova is an American science-fiction author and editor. He is the recipient of six Hugo Awards for Best Professional Editor for his work at Analog Science Fiction in the 1970's.-Personal life:...

. The insignia features Skylab above the earth with the sun in the background. In an article for Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact magazine, Freas said, "Among the suggestions the astronauts had made was the idea of a solar eclipse as seen from Skylab. It soon became clear that this idea would solve several problems at once: it pointed up the solar study function of Skylab, it would give me the large circular shape of the Earth as counterpoint to the angularity of the cluster, and it would establish firmly the connection of Skylab to the Earth. In addition, it would give a chance to get the necessary high contrast for good visibility of the tiny finished patch. ... I made several studies of cloud patterns on the planet, reducing them finally to very conventionalized swirls. The Skylab cluster was simplified and simplified again, till it became simply a black form with a white edgelight to set it off."

Spacecraft location

The command module they flew to the station in is displayed at the National Museum of Naval Aviation

National Museum of Naval Aviation

The National Museum of Naval Aviation is a military and aerospace museum located at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida. The museum opened in 1962....

, Pensacola, Florida

Pensacola, Florida

Pensacola is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle and the county seat of Escambia County, Florida, United States of America. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 56,255 and as of 2009, the estimated population was 53,752...