Underwater Testing Materials for the Skylab Heat Shield

Underwater Testing Materials for the Skylab Heat Shield

Underwater Testing Materials for Skylab Heat Shield

Marshall Space Flight Center

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (U.S.)

NASA

Skylab Program

Workers creating underwater testing materials for the Skylab heat shield at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. After the nearly catastrophic launch of the Skylab, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) worked to solve the problems created by the troubled launch. As part of that work, employees workers at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, created a net to simulate deployment underwater of the proposed heat shield. As Project Apollo was winding down and the final three missions (Apollo 18, Apollo 19, and Apollo 20) were canceled, NASA looked for ways to repurpose launch vehicles and other equipment. Out of this, Skylab and three space science missions were born. Skylab was born out a concept first proposed by famed rocket designer Wernher von Braun (1912-1977), to use an unused upper stage fuel tank and convert it to an orbital laboratory. This was NASA's budget being slashed. With the tank becoming the basis of the space station, NAS) added solar arrays, a docking adapter, and a space observatory. The Skylab missions were constituted of one mission to put the station in space (Skylab 1), using a modified and last Saturn V to launch, and three crewed missions (Skylab 2, Skylab 3, and Skylab 4) to occupy the lab and perform science, using the smaller Saturn IB booster to launch the three astronaut crews. When launched on May 14, 1973, the station encountered problems immediately. A micrometeoroid shield prematurely deployed and tore off one of the two main solar arrays. NASA engineers went to work and were able to save Skylab and the three crewed missions. Each of the subsequent missions set what were then endurance records for living in space and conducted substantial space science experiments. NASA tried to keep Skylab in orbit after Skylab 4 (SL-4) and until the Space Shuttle could boost its orbit, but with a decaying orbit it crashed on July 11, 1979.

Original black and white photographic print, May 19, 1973: Larry Summers Collection.

1973-05-19

Digital reproduction of original black and white photographic print, May 19, 1973.

Florida Space Coast History Collection, RICHES of Central Florida.

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1 black and white photographic print

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Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama

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History Teacher

Civics/Government Teacher

Copyright to this resource is held by Larry Summers and is provided here by RICHES of Central Florida for educational purposes only.

Michlowitz, Robert

Cepero, Laura

"Skylab, Birth of the Modern Space Station: Part I - The History of Sky | NASA." National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Accessed August 12. http://www.nasa.gov/missions/shuttle/f_skylab1.html.

Belew, Leland F. 1977. "Our First Space Station - Chapter 2." SP-400 NASA- Skylab, Our First Space Station. http://history.nasa.gov/SP-400/ch2.htm.

Howell, Elizabeth. 2013. "Skylab: First U.S. Space Station." Space.com. February 1. http://www.space.com/19607-skylab.html.

1 black and white photographic print