May 14, 1973, the trusty Saturn V rocket hurled into space carrying Skylab, America's first orbital workshop. The mission was intended to be a step between short manned missions and a permanent American space station. The lab was launched unmanned, but three separate crews of three astronauts each were soon sent to occupy it.
Saturn not only launched Skylab, but the inactive third stage of a Saturn rocket was used as a shell to house the scientific laboratory itself. Three other modules were attached for scientific and operational purposes. The astronomy section, known as the Apollo Telescope Mount, was equipped with instruments that could observe the Sun in the visible, ultraviolet and X-ray spectrum ranges.
In nine months, Skylab collected a bonanza of scientific information and gave the United States more experience in long term flights. The final crew, launched November 16, 1973 remained in space for 84 days setting a new American endurance record.
The orbital workshop provided biomedical data on living and working in space as well as 30,242 photos of the Sun, and over 14,000 of the Earth. Experiments determined the effects of weightlessness on life forms like minnows and plant seedlings, and preliminary investigations of materials processing in space were carried out. Three crews spent a total of 171 fruitful days in space, but when NASA redirected its funds to the STS (Space Transportation System) shuttle, Skylab was left unmanned for five years.
Deterioration from disuse caused technical problems and Skylab began to lose its orbit, but no astronauts were sent up to make repairs. Instead, NASA attempted to redirect Skylab from the ground by remote control, but on July 11, 1979 Skylab fell back into the Earth's atmosphere and burned up.
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