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Skylab and Earth Limb Main Content
NASA Center: Johnson Space Center
Image # : SL4-143-4706
Date : 02/08/1974

Title

Skylab and Earth Limb

Full Description

An overhead view of the Skylab Orbital Workshop in Earth orbit as photographed from the Skylab 4 Command and Service Modules (CSM) during the final fly-around by the CSM before returning home. The space station is contrasted against the pale blue Earth. During launch on May 14, 1973, some 63 seconds into flight, the micrometeor shield on the Orbital Workshop (OWS) experienced a failure that caused it to be caught up in the supersonic air flow during ascent. This ripped the shield from the OWS and damaged the tie downs that secured one of the solar array systems. Complete loss of one of the solar arrays happened at 593 seconds when the exhaust plume from the S-II's separation rockets impacted the partially deployed solar array system. Without the micrometeoroid shield that was to protect against solar heating as well, temperatures inside the OWS rose to 126 degrees fahrenheit. The gold "parasol" clearly visible in the photo, was designed to replace the missing micrometeoroid shield, protecting the workshop against solar heating. The replacement solar shield was deployed by the Skylab I crew. This enabled the Skylab Orbital Workshop to fulfill all its mission objects serving as home to additional crews before being deorbited in 1978.

Keywords

Skylab Orbital Workshop Micrometeoroid Apollo Command Service Module S-II Solar Array Parasol Solar Shield

Subject Category

Skylab,

Reference Numbers

  • Center: JSC
  • Center Number: SL4-143-4706
  • GRIN DataBase Number: GPN-2000-001055

Source Information

  • Creator/Photographer: NASA
  • Original Source: DIGITAL

Image Information ( Copyright Notification )

ResolutionFormatWidth
(Pixels)		Height
(Pixels)		Size
(KBytes)
Thumbnail .jpg 90 93 15
Small .jpg 640 663 416
Medium .jpg 1500 1553 2,236
Large .jpg 3000 3106 7,484

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