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Skylab 1
May 14, 1973
Unmanned
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Mission
Achievements
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The station was launched into orbit by a Saturn V booster. Almost immediately,
technical problems developed due to vibrations during lift-off. A critical
meteoroid shield ripped off taking one of the craft's two solar panels with
it; a piece of the shield wrapped around the other panel keeping it from deploying.
Skylab was maneuvered so its Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM) solar panels faced
the Sun to provide as much electricity as possible. Because of the loss of the
meteoroid shield, however, this positioning caused workshop temperatures to
rise to 52 degrees Celsius (126 degrees F). The launch of Skylab 2 was postponed while NASA engineers, in an intensive 10-day period, developed
procedures and trained the crew to make the workshop habitable. At the same
time, engineers "rolled" Skylab to lower the temperature of the workshop.
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