America's First Space Station Proved Humans Could Live and Work in Orbit for Months. Now, the Public Can See What It Looked Like in Person for the First Time in Eight Years

Carlyn Kranking | Associate Web Editor, Science

Add as preferred source. An image of Skylab captured by its final crew as they departed. During launch, one of the solar array wings broke off, and the gold sheet at the center was quickly manufactured afterward to serve as a makeshift sunshield and control the internal temperature. NASA In just ten days, the very first crew of NASA’s earliest space station had to make an emergency adjustment to their mission.

Their destination, a space-based science laboratory made from a recycled rocket, was badly damaged when it launched on May 14, 1973. A shield meant to protect the lab from micrometeoroids and heat had torn off just moments into the flight. One of the lab’s two solar panel arrays was also lost, and the other, entangled by debris from the shield, could not be deployed. This left the space station, called Skylab, operating with only a fraction of its full power—and it was dangerously overheating.