Skylab was the first American Space station. It was launched the May 14th 1973 and disintegrated above the Indian Ocean on July 11th 1979 while returning in the atmosphere.

For their first space station, the American will initially choose to convert the material built for the lunar missions (like the rockets Saturn V or the modules Apollo). It will be the program AAP (Apollo Application Program), which will become Skylab in 1973. Thus, the Skylab station was manufactured by re-using the third stage of the rocket Saturn V and was launched by the last rocket of this type.

The American station remains one of the most important structures ever built, launched and maintained on orbit. It consisted of four principal elements:

• the module of order Apollo
• the module of control of environment
• the orbital workshop
• the platform of the Telescope

This space Laboratoire had a useful volume of 330 m ³ and weighed 82 ton S.

However, the station sudden of the important damage during its launching and could not deploy one of its solar panels. Then an accident occurred after intense a solar activity which deviated the course fatally. In spite of the efforts of NASA to control the descent, the west of the Australia accepted many remains of the station.

See too

Internal bonds

• Mir
• Salyut
• International space station

External bonds

• Official site at NASA

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