Skylab : The First 40 days (1973)

scab Houston everybody around here has looked at the bird and it looks real good Roger Roger and you're being awaited by the USS ton deroga and uh we're waiting to see you back here in Houston too all righty you can relay to The Tao we've got their Fox corpin and our Hook is down you that this was sky laab on the the final day of the first man Mission the crew had this last view as they made preparations for return to Earth it had been a successful Mission the large majority of scientific objectives were accomplished but the bright orange sun shade the single solar Wing presented a striking reminder of a mission that was something more than routine a mission that gave new meaning to the term man space flight tus 13 12 11 10 9 8 we have ignition sequence has started 6 5 4 3 2 1 Zer and we have a off the sky laab lifting off the pad now moving up sky has cleared the tower it was the afternoon of May 14th 1973 when the unmanned Skylab Saturn Workshop was hurled aoft at Cape Kennedy on the way to its assigned orbit 236 nautical miles in Space the cloud cover was heavy on launch day and prevented the tracking cameras from seeing an event that occurred about 1 minute into the mission at the point of Maximum vibration Telemetry sensed premature deployment of the meteoroid Shield followed by a weak electrical signal from the workshop solar arrays clearly there had been a problem but the exact nature wasn't known until after orbital insertion during the first Revolution Skylab temperatures began to rise rapidly and pieces of the puzzle started to fall in place NASA Engineers surmised that the anomalies were most likely related it was felt that the meteoroid Shield had been completely lost at deployment which accounted for the high heat levels also that fragments of the meteoroid Shield had jammed or otherwise hindered full deployment of the solar array panels failure of these panels which were designed to furnish about half of Skylab electrical power meant that the total power burden would have to be borne by solar panels of the Apollo telescope Mount by early evening Workshop temperatures had risen above the level of safety launching of the crew the following day received an indefinite hold pending satisfactory Solutions flight support and Engineering teams were immediately set in motion to find the answers at stake was the future of the entire Skylab program the most urgent need was to achieve a thermal electrical balance this meant maneuvering to an Optimum flight attitude for solar requirements that were in direct conflict too much solar radiation would drive temperatures higher increasing the chances of component damage and food spoilage on the other hand generation of electrical power to drive heat exchangers and food freezers was wholly dependent on exposure to the while flight controllers struggled to achieve this delicate balance other teams had the major objective of Designing a thermal Shield that could be deployed on the workshop to make it habitable NASA centers and Private Industry responded with a variety of Shield Concepts the most promising designs were released for fabrication Health finally they were subjected to to functional testing by the fifth day of the mission the choice had been narrowed to a model called the parasol it had good functional reliability and the crew would be able to deploy it from inside the workshop through a scientific airlock another Shield the twin pole sun shade would also be carried on the mission as a backup here in the sky lab underwater simulator at the Marshall space flight center Crews practiced extra vehicular installation of the sun shade in conditions approximating 0 g as for the solar Wings simulation methods were mostly inconclusive little was known about the extent of wing damage at this point and the crew could only speculate on how best to make them deploy at Mission Control solar orientation of the spacecraft had begun to yield positive results temperatures still too high for habitation were stabilized and electrical power was sufficient for operating vital systems and Equipment though still precarious the situation had been checked there was reason to believe it would remain stable until the astronaut's launch now scheduled for May 25th 10 days behind the original schedule on the day before launch the parasol team raced the clock to deliver the flight article on [Music] [Music] time they were down to the last 30-minute extension as the parasol packed in the flight canister was loaded for transfer to Cape Kennedy in spite of the rigid schedule hopes ran high that the parasol would do the job attention now turned to the astronauts who would attempt to put it in place in the early morning hours of May 25th Skylab 2 with both thermal Shields stowed aboard was well along in the countdown the crew mean while made ready to embark on their historic Mission this all Navy crew consisted of Captain Charles Pete Conrad Sky laab Commander a veteran of both the Gemini and Apollo programs Commander Paul whites who would be Skylab pilot for the mission had been a member of the support crew of Apollo 12 and Commander Joseph Kerwin scientist pilot who would be the first American physician in space the 10-day delay had been a giant Cram Course for all concerned especially for the crew and their job was only partially complete the execution of all the planning effort was now solely in their hands following a smooth launch Skylab 2 maneuvered to the proper flight path attitude for its initial downrange orbit by mid afternoon the crew had overtaken the workshop TV picture beginning to come in now to the control center SC Houston where AOS had gu for the next 10 minutes the Skyland we got her at daylight there at 1.5 miles 29 ft per second Roger Pete copy they affected Rendevous and performed a fly around to assess the damage most predictions were confirmed houon the meteoroid Shield area and solid gold roger copy brief description is you suspected solar Wing two right yeah it's gone completely off the bird solar Wing one is in fact partially deployed and the reason that you got different readings that symmetric between your three solar panels as there's a bulge of meteorite shield underneath it in the middle and it looks to be holding it down I roger copy okay Houston it looks like the meteorite Shield at the upper vet panel on the S swing has wrapped around it just slightly are we now my guess is that our easiest thing to do just go to the end and try and deploy it Roger uh Pete wh from which side of the Sass is the meteoroid Shield slightly wrapped around is on the side of the main tunnel or before docking the crew attempted to free the wing although the try was unsuccessful the TV pictures seen here proved invaluable in dividing using the technique that ultimately worked following a night's sleep in the Command Module the crew spent the morning of Saturday the 26th activating and checking systems in the multiple docking adapter and airlock module later they were given a go to enter the workshop so we are progressing slow but sure and everything so far it's working by late afternoon the canister was positioned in the scientific airlock ready for parasol extension okay Pete we had a little drop out there some noise uh could you tell us what step you're on we're about to put Rod Delta on Roger copy we had no trouble vending it down it vented in about 4 minutes and it held zero for 10 minutes without any oning door open very smoothly and so far the rod extension has gone very easily and as I say we're just taking a little heat break some 4 hours after the operation began the thermop parasol was deployed it was then placed in position close to the workshop skin well we don't think so Houston we can see the ends of all the r it's it's completely free of anything there's nothing hanging it up it's took about two revolutions of Skylab before temperatures began to fall projections showed that if the present Trend continued the workshop would be below 100° the following day it wouldn't be the most comfortable environment but after a discussion with the crew the decision was made to proceed the next morning with the normal Flight Plan the crew put in a long trying day activating the workshop getting things organized and in the proper place place was a chore in itself however they were discovering to their satisfaction that moving big pieces of gear presented no problem in the weightless environment by noon Monday the 28th with the workshop completely activated primary emphasis was on getting the biomedical experiment started this was the first in a series of lower body negative pressure and Vector cardiogram experiments Paul whites the subject Joe Kerwin The Observer there followed a workout on the bicycle ergometer to check metabolic Effectiveness and to evaluate the bicycle as an exerciser for long duration missions ideally the handle would be longer than they are now and would kind of sweep down around you so you could grab them in the right place other medical experiments conducted over the next few days included blood samplings from each crew member to satis y the five blood study experiments body mass measurement to determine each cuman's daily weight and to validate the use of this device for weighing in Zerg a rotating litter chair a part of the human vestibular function experiment tested for motion sickness rotation perception and ability to determine orientation in addition to these and other medical experiments s science experiments were simultaneously being performed here Pete Conrad operates the Apollo telescope Mount control and display panel in preparation for the solar physics studies in subsequent operations data such as this active region of the sun was recorded by the [Music] telescope got a tap motion light the Earth Resources experiments also got underway after activation of the six remote sensing systems Mark F12 I got a ready light we just came out from Over the clouds how about that auto sequence start on 90 and uh you EPC from a broad field of view provided by this large space platform the systems began photographing selected portions of the Earth surface in the visible and near infrared spectral regions although the crew had earlier encountered a number of equipment problems the result of excessive temperatures the prospects now looked bright for a full 28-day mission the temperature had stabilized in the mid-70s the food was good and so was morale and up to now the 4700 watts of available power appeared to be adequate as long as high load experiments were staggered however by the fifth day some of the storage batteries had begun to perform in a degraded manner the power shortage grew critical and it became apparent that to carry out the mission the jam solar panel would have to be deployed meanwhile at marshall in the underwater simulator techniques were being developed based on TV coverage of the solar Wing using only tools and equipment like those aboard Skylab the backup crew developed a set of procedures they felt would do the job on June 7th astronauts Conrad and Kerwin made their exit to put the plan into operation you take your time okay Houston we're out there we uh we have the debris inside there looks like enough room to get the cutter and uh I'm trying to help Joe stabilize as the simulations had shown access to the solar Wing was the big problem what with few hand holds or foot restraints it was solved by joining pole sections of the twin pole sun shade anchoring it by hooking a pair of Cutters onto the strap that held the wing thus a temporary handrail was fashioned that allowed Pak Conrad access to the solar Wing where he attached a tether the Cutters then severed the strap and the tether was pulled Tau to free the wing actuator after the crew returned to Skylab an attitude change placed the solar array system into the sun where after a period of warming the hydraulic dampers the panel arrays fully deployed within hours the electrical power surged to almost double the previous level it meant that the power management scheme could be abandoned and and the original Flight Plan could be resumed in the days that followed the nagging problems that had plagued the astronauts from the start began to resolve the mission began to sound much more routine more like a normal working day experiments were coming off like clockwork and a wealth of scientific data was being gathered experiments such as this one in materials processing [Music] with more Leisure it was not uncommon for the men of Skylab to indulge themselves in the fluidity of movement in zerog [Music] oh [Music] the weightless condition also simplified sleep accommodations since there was really no up or down the only requirement was a sleeping bag type of restraint and as mentioned earlier heavy objects were easily handled it was the small pieces that sometimes got away but even when objects were lost they generally turned up sooner or later on the air conditioning screen there to be reclaimed on day 29 after performing Final close out of the orbital Workshop the crew dawned space suits for the return leg of their mission Sky Houston we're in atole CMG you're go for undocking okay stand by Roger okay we're free we got four T of a foot per second Houston Roger byebye skyb after undocking they remained on station briefly to obtain photographic coverage following D orbit the Command Module it's heat shield trailing a FY plume re-entered the atmosphere for the first time in about a month the crew experienced the forces of [Applause] gravity tonoga standing by for Sonic Boom now skyb Houston through a one how do you read everything 40,000 very good Pete you're in the group all recovery all recovery sky on the Main and everything's okay and this recovery we have a vis below the overcast about 1 z0 at 0 6 Miles Road recovery splash down and it looks like stable one hello recover recover reg clear how's it going okay everybody's in super shape that's great welcome back thank you splash down occurred some 700 M off Southern California near the recovery ship the USS taond deroga after retrieval and positioning on the flight deck The Command Module hatch was [Applause] open one by one the crewman stepped forth unassisted seemingly undotted by their return to normal gravity they accommodated to normal activity within several [Music] hours in San Diego the first Skylab crewman were received by a vocal and appreciative throng they had reason to be proud the large majority of scheduled experimental data was gathered and all subsystem operational test objectives were achieved all this in spite of the problems encountered from the [Music] start problems that in the final analysis required the presence of man to reason to decide to execute Solutions as only he can