July 22, 2013 - More Records, More Repairs

More Records, More Repairs The second crew to visit Skylab left Earth forty years ago this week. Astronauts Owen Garriott, Jack Lousma, and Alan Bean caught up with the orbiting space station just eight hours after launch. In the photo above, taken during their arrival fly-around inspection, Skylab’s missing solar panel is obvious, as is the insulating solar shade draping over the top of the station that the previous crew deployed to compensate for protective shielding that was lost during liftoff. After a few days of motion sickness upon their arrival at Skylab, the crew was able to perform more repairs and maintenance on the damaged station. During their fifty-nine days in space (a new record for space endurance) the astronauts conducted nearly fourteen hours of space walks (another record).

Image credit: NASA

Weekly Calendar

July 22-28, 2013

Holidays - Sky Events - Space History

Monday 22

Venus 1.2° north of Regulus
Mars 0.8° north of Jupiter
Full Moon 2:15 PM ET

1784: Friedrich Bessel born
1994: Last fragment of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacts Jupiter

Tuesday 23

1972: Landsat 1 launched
1999: STS-93 Columbia launched, deploys Chandra X-Ray Observatory

Wednesday 24

1950: First rocket launched from Cape Canaveral
1969: Apollo 11 crew returns to Earth
1975: Apollo-Soyuz crew returns to Earth, last US splashdown
2009: Canaries Great Telescope dedicated

Thursday 25

Neptune 6° south of Moon

1978: Viking 2 orbiter ceases operation
1984: Svetlana Savitskaya becomes first woman to walk in space
2000: Zvezda Service Module docks with International Space Station

Friday 26

1958: Explorer IV launched
1971: Apollo 15 launched, fourth lunar landing mission, first mission to use lunar rover
2005: STS-114 Discovery launched