Skylab Launches: America's First Space Station Takes Flight
NASA launched Skylab, America's first space station, on May 14, 1973, atop the last Saturn V rocket ever built. During launch, a micrometeoroid shield tore away, taking one of two solar panel wings with it and jamming the other. The station reached orbit overheating and critically short of electrical power. The first crew, launched 11 days later, performed a dramatic spacewalk to deploy a parasol sunshade and free the jammed solar panel, saving the station. Three crews occupied Skylab over the next nine months, conducting 270 scientific experiments including solar observations, Earth resource surveys, and the first studies of how the human body adapts to prolonged weightlessness. Skylab reentered the atmosphere in 1979, scattering debris across Western Australia.
May 14, 1973
53 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on May 14
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