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122-464: Skylab was the United States' first space station , launched by NASA , occupied for about 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974. It was operated by three trios of astronaut crews: Skylab 2 , Skylab 3 , and Skylab 4 . Operations included an orbital workshop, a solar observatory , Earth observation and hundreds of experiments . Skylab's orbit eventually decayed and it disintegrated in

244-418: A Gemini capsule on a Titan II-C , the latter being much less expensive in the case where cargo was not needed. Proposals ranged from an Apollo-based station with two to three men, or a small "canister" for four men with Gemini capsules resupplying it, to a large, rotating station with 24 men and an operating lifetime of about five years. A proposal to study the use of a Saturn S-IVB as a crewed space laboratory

366-438: A dart set , playing cards , and other recreational equipment in addition to books and music players, the window with its view of Earth became the most popular way to relax in orbit. Prior to departure about 80 experiments were named, although they are also described as "almost 300 separate investigations". Experiments were divided into six broad categories: Because the solar scientific airlock – one of two research airlocks –

488-451: A " wet workshop " concept, because of the conversion of an active fuel tank. The station filled the entire interior of the S-II stage's hydrogen tank, with the equipment section forming a "spine" and living quarters located between it and the walls of the booster. This would have resulted in a very large 33 by 45 feet (10 by 14 m) living area. Power was to be provided by solar cells lining

610-513: A 31,000-pound (14,000 kg) Apollo command and service module (CSM) attached and included a workshop, a solar observatory, and several hundred life science and physical science experiments. It was launched uncrewed into low Earth orbit by a Saturn V rocket modified to be similar to the Saturn INT-21 , with the S-IVB third stage not available for propulsion because the orbital workshop

732-495: A NASA volunteer found it intolerable to live on the Apollo food for four days on Earth. Its taste and composition were unpleasant, in the form of cubes and squeeze tubes. Skylab food significantly improved on its predecessors by prioritizing palatability over scientific needs. For sleeping in space , each astronaut had a private area the size of a small walk-in closet , with a curtain, sleeping bag, and locker. Designers also added

854-470: A Saturn IB rocket from Launch Pad 39B. Skylab 1 was the last uncrewed launch from LC-39A until February 19, 2017, when SpaceX CRS-10 was launched from there. Three crewed missions, designated Skylab 2 , Skylab 3 , and Skylab 4 , were made to Skylab in the Apollo command and service modules . The first crewed mission, Skylab 2, launched on May 25, 1973, atop a Saturn IB and involved extensive repairs to

976-460: A backup Apollo CSM/Saturn IB in case an in-orbit rescue mission was needed, but this vehicle was never flown. The station was damaged during launch when the micrometeoroid shield tore away from the workshop, taking one of the main solar panel arrays with it and jamming the other main array. This deprived Skylab of most of its electrical power and also removed protection from intense solar heating, threatening to make it unusable. The first crew deployed

1098-531: A cylindrical environment in the rear of the Space Shuttle orbiter payload bay, connected to the orbiter crew compartment by a tunnel. The laboratory had an outer diameter of 4.12 m (13.5 ft), and each segment a length of 2.7 m (8 ft 10 in). The laboratory module consisted at minimum of a core segment, which could be used alone in a short module configuration. The long module configuration included an additional experiment segment. It

1220-540: A habitable module was not flown, but pallets were flown, a pressurized cylinder known as the Igloo carried the subsystems needed to operate the Spacelab equipment. The Igloo was 3 m (9.8 ft) tall, had a diameter of 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in), and weighed 1,100 kg (2,400 lb). Two Igloo units were manufactured, both by Belgium company SABCA , and both were used on spaceflights. An Igloo component

1342-413: A large field of view, such as telescopes. The pallet has several hard points for mounting heavy equipment. The pallet can be used in single configuration or stacked end to end in double or triple configurations. Up to five pallets can be configured in the Space Shuttle cargo bay by using a double pallet plus triple pallet configurations. The Spacelab Pallet used to transport both Canadarm2 and Dextre to

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1464-420: A large, circular station 250 feet (75 m) in diameter that would rotate to generate artificial gravity and require a fleet of 7,000 short tons (6,400 metric tons) space shuttles for construction in orbit. The 80 men aboard the station would include astronomers operating a telescope, meteorologists to forecast the weather, and soldiers to conduct surveillance. Von Braun expected that future expeditions to

1586-723: A longer lifetime at the cost of requiring regular support launches. The ISS is divided into two main sections, the Russian Orbital Segment (ROS) and the US Orbital Segment (USOS). The first module of the ISS, Zarya , was launched in 1998. The Russian Orbital Segment's "second-generation" modules were able to launch on Proton , fly to the correct orbit, and dock themselves without human intervention. Connections are automatically made for power, data, gases, and propellants. The Russian autonomous approach allows

1708-647: A mission mode that would not need in-orbit assembly. A smaller station that a single rocket could launch retained value, however, for scientific purposes. In 1959, von Braun, head of the Development Operations Division at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency , submitted his final Project Horizon plans to the U.S. Army . The overall goal of Horizon was to place men on the Moon, a mission that would soon be taken over by

1830-552: A replacement heat shade and freed the jammed solar panels to save Skylab. This was the first time that a repair of this magnitude was performed in space. The Apollo Telescope significantly advanced solar science, and observation of the Sun was unprecedented. Astronauts took thousands of photographs of Earth, and the Earth Resources Experiment Package (EREP) viewed Earth with sensors that recorded data in

1952-707: A result of a NASA contest. The actual stage that flew was the upper stage of the AS-212 rocket (the S-IVB stage, S-IVB 212). The mission computer used aboard Skylab was the IBM System/4Pi TC-1, a relative of the AP-101 Space Shuttle computers. The Saturn V with serial number SA-513, originally produced for the Apollo program – before the cancellation of Apollo 18, 19, and 20 – was repurposed and redesigned to launch Skylab. The Saturn V's third stage

2074-427: A science laboratory for use on Space Shuttle flights. Construction of Spacelab was started in 1974 by Entwicklungsring Nord (ERNO), a subsidiary of VFW-Fokker GmbH , after merger with Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB) named MBB/ERNO, and merged into EADS SPACE Transportation in 2003. The first lab module, LM1 , was donated to NASA in exchange for flight opportunities for European astronauts. A second module, LM2 ,

2196-462: A second crew to visit, bringing a new spacecraft with them; the Soyuz ferry could spend 90 days in space, at which point it needed to be replaced by a fresh Soyuz spacecraft. This allowed for a crew to man the station continually. The American Skylab (1973–1979) was also equipped with two docking ports, like second-generation stations, but the extra port was never used. The presence of a second port on

2318-462: A shower and a toilet for comfort and to obtain precise urine and feces samples for examination on Earth. The waste samples were so important that they would have been priorities in any rescue mission . Skylab did not have recycling systems such as the conversion of urine to drinking water; it also did not dispose of waste by dumping it into space. The S-IVB's 73,280 liters (16,120 imp gal; 19,360 U.S. gal) liquid oxygen tank below

2440-555: A shower once a week, but found drying themselves in weightlessness and vacuuming excess water difficult; later crews usually cleaned themselves daily with wet washcloths instead of using the shower. Astronauts also found that bending over in weightlessness to put on socks or tie shoelaces strained their abdominal muscles. Breakfast began at 7 a.m. Astronauts usually stood to eat, as sitting in microgravity also strained their abdominal muscles. They reported that their food – although greatly improved from Apollo –

2562-579: A space station occurred in Edward Everett Hale 's 1868 " The Brick Moon ". The first to give serious, scientifically grounded consideration to space stations were Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Hermann Oberth about two decades apart in the early 20th century. In 1929, Herman Potočnik 's The Problem of Space Travel was published, the first to envision a "rotating wheel" space station to create artificial gravity . Conceptualized during

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2684-399: A subset of just one part of the Spacelab 1 (STS-9) mission, no less than eight different imaging systems were flown into space. Including those experiments, there was a total of 73 separate experiments across different disciplines on the Spacelab 1 flight alone. Spacelab missions conducted experiments in materials, life, solar, astrophysics, atmospheric, and Earth science. Spacelab represents

2806-496: A system that help detect and control the orientation of the station in space. Other sensors that helped with this were a Sun tracker and a star tracker . The sensors fed data to the main computer, which could then use the control gyroscopes and or the thruster system to keep Skylab pointed as desired. Skylab had a zero-gravity shower system in the work and experiment section of the Orbital Workshop designed and built at

2928-538: A two-person crew. The station was the same diameter as a Titan II upper stage , and would be launched with the crew riding atop in a modified Gemini capsule with a hatch cut into the heat shield on the bottom of the capsule. MOL competed for funding with a NASA station for the next five years and politicians and other officials often suggested that NASA participate in MOL or use the DoD design. The military project led to changes to

3050-696: A variety of LM or CSM-based hardware. Although it did not look at the space station specifically, over the next two years the office would become increasingly dedicated to this role. In August 1965, the office was renamed, becoming the Apollo Applications Program (AAP). As part of their general work, in August 1964 the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) presented studies on an expendable lab known as Apollo X , short for Apollo Extension System . Apollo X would have replaced

3172-579: A variety of challenges to human habitability, including short-term problems such as the limited supplies of air, water, and food and the need to manage waste heat , and long-term ones such as weightlessness and relatively high levels of ionizing radiation . These conditions can create long-term health problems for space-station inhabitants, including muscle atrophy , bone deterioration , balance disorders , eyesight disorders , and elevated risk of cancer . Future space habitats may attempt to address these issues, and could be designed for occupation beyond

3294-481: A year, all aboard Mir . Many spacecraft are used to dock with the space stations. Soyuz flight T-15 in March to July 1986 was the first and as of 2016, only spacecraft to visit two different space stations, Mir and Salyut 7 . The International Space Station has been supported by many different spacecraft. The Tiangong space station is supported by the following spacecraft: The Tiangong program relied on

3416-562: Is a complex vehicle that must incorporate many interrelated subsystems, including structure, electrical power, thermal control, attitude determination and control , orbital navigation and propulsion, automation and robotics, computing and communications, environmental and life support, crew facilities, and crew and cargo transportation. Stations must serve a useful role, which drives the capabilities required. Space stations are made from durable materials that have to weather space radiation , internal pressure, micrometeoroids , thermal effects of

3538-551: Is not designed for disassembly and must be deorbited as one mass. The Axiom Orbital Segment is a planned commercial segment to be added to the ISS starting in the mid-2020s. Axiom Space gained NASA approval for the venture in January 2020. Up to three Axiom modules will attach to the International Space Station. The first module, Hab One, is expected to be launched at the end of 2026 and will be docked to

3660-848: Is on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum behind the Space Shuttle Discovery . LM2 was on display in the Bremenhalle exhibition in the Bremen Airport of Bremen , Germany from 2000 to 2010. It resides in building 4c at the nearby Airbus Defence and Space plant since 2010 and can only be viewed during guided tours. The Spacelab Pallet is a U-shaped platform for mounting instrumentation, large instruments, experiments requiring exposure to space, and instruments requiring

3782-602: The Apollo Logistic Support System Office , originally intended to study various ways to modify the Apollo hardware for scientific missions. The office initially proposed a number of projects for direct scientific study, including an extended-stay lunar mission which required two Saturn V launchers, a "lunar truck" based on the Lunar Module (LM), a large, crewed solar telescope using an LM as its crew quarters, and small space stations using

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3904-506: The Gemini program paved the way and achieved the first space rendezvous (undocked) with Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 in 1965. Subsequently in 1966 Neil Armstrong performed on Gemini 8 the first ever space docking, while in 1967 Kosmos 186 and Kosmos 188 were the first spacecrafts that docked automatically. In January 1969, Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 performed the first docked, but not internal, crew transfer, and in March, Apollo 9 performed

4026-488: The Manned Spaceflight Center . It had a cylindrical curtain that went from floor to ceiling and a vacuum system to suck away water. The floor of the shower had foot restraints. To bathe, the user coupled a pressurized bottle of warmed water to the shower's plumbing, then stepped inside and secured the curtain. A push-button shower nozzle was connected by a stiff hose to the top of the shower. The system

4148-528: The Moon and Mars would leave from the station. The development of the transistor , the solar cell , and telemetry , led in the 1950s and early 1960s to uncrewed satellites that could take photographs of weather patterns or enemy nuclear weapons and send them to Earth. A large station was no longer necessary for such purposes, and the United States Apollo program to send men to the Moon chose

4270-687: The Multiple Docking Adapter , mainly because the structure could not carry enough weight for a single larger film vault. The orbital workshop could handle a single larger safe, which is also more efficient for shielding. A later example of a radiation vault is the Juno Radiation Vault for the Juno Jupiter orbiter, launched in 2011, which was designed to protect much of the uncrewed spacecraft's electronics, using 1 cm thick walls of titanium . The large vault in

4392-517: The S-II second stage of a Saturn V. His design replaced the S-IVB third stage with an aeroshell, primarily as an adapter for the CSM on top. Inside the shell was a 10 feet (3.0 m) cylindrical equipment section. On reaching orbit, the S-II second stage would be vented to remove any remaining hydrogen fuel, then the equipment section would be slid into it via a large inspection hatch. This became known as

4514-678: The Salyut successor Mir . Uninterrupted occupation of stations has been achieved since the operational transition from the Mir to the ISS , with its first occupation in 2000. The ISS has hosted the highest number of people in orbit at the same time, reaching 13 for the first time during the eleven day docking of STS-127 in 2009. The duration record for a single spaceflight is 437.75 days, set by Valeri Polyakov aboard Mir from 1994 to 1995. As of 2021 , four cosmonauts have completed single missions of over

4636-565: The Second World War , the " sun gun " was a theoretical orbital weapon orbiting Earth at a height of 8,200 kilometres (5,100 mi). No further research was ever conducted. In 1951, Wernher von Braun published a concept for a rotating wheel space station in Collier's Weekly , referencing Potočnik's idea. However, development of a rotating station was never begun in the 20th century. The first human flew to space and concluded

4758-580: The visible , infrared , and microwave spectral regions. The record for human time spent in orbit was extended beyond the 23 days set by the Soyuz 11 crew aboard Salyut 1 to 84 days by the Skylab 4 crew. Later plans to reuse Skylab were stymied by delays in the development of the Space Shuttle, and Skylab's decaying orbit could not be stopped. Skylab's atmospheric reentry began on July 11, 1979, amid worldwide media attention. Before re-entry, NASA ground controllers tried to adjust Skylab's orbit to minimize

4880-596: The AAP program. Although this would have allowed them to develop von Braun's original S-II-based mission, by this time so much work had been done on the S-IV-based design that work continued on this baseline. With the extra power available, the wet workshop was no longer needed; the S-IC and S-II lower stages could launch a "dry workshop", with its interior already prepared, directly into orbit. A dry workshop simplified plans for

5002-475: The Apollo Telescope Mount, and to resist various forces that can change the station's orientation. Some of the forces acting on Skylab that the pointing system needed to resist: The Skylab-A attitude and pointing control system has been developed to meet the high accuracy requirements established by the desired experiment conditions. Conditions must be maintained by the control system under

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5124-461: The ISS and China 's Tiangong Space Station (TSS), which have been occupied since October 2000 with Expedition 1 and since June 2022 with Shenzhou 14 . The highest number of people at the same time on one space station has been 13, first achieved with the eleven day docking to the ISS of the 127th Space Shuttle mission in 2009. The record for most people on all space stations at the same time has been 17, first on May 30, 2023, with 11 people on

5246-470: The ISS and 6 on the TSS. Space stations are most often modular , featuring docking ports , through which they are built and maintained, allowing the joining or movement of modules and the docking of other spacecrafts for the exchange of people, supplies and tools. While space stations generally do not leave their orbit, they do feature thrusters for station keeping . The first mention of anything resembling

5368-534: The ISS on the SpaceX CRS-8 resupply mission. This module, based on NASA research in the 1990s, weighs 1,400 kilograms (3,100 lb) and was transported while compressed before being attached to the ISS by the space station arm and inflated to provide a 16 cubic metres (21 cu yd) volume. Whilst it was initially designed for a 2   year lifetime it was still attached and being used for storage in August 2022. The space station environment presents

5490-437: The ISS, orbiting today. Each crew member stays aboard the station for weeks or months but rarely more than a year. Early stations were monolithic designs that were constructed and launched in one piece, generally containing all their supplies and experimental equipment. A crew would then be launched to join the station and perform research. After the supplies had been consumed, the station was abandoned. The first space station

5612-594: The International Space Station is currently at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum , on loan from NASA through the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). A Spacelab Pallet was transferred to the Swiss Museum of Transport for permanent display on 5 March 2010. The Pallet, nicknamed Elvis , was used during the eight-day STS-46 mission, 31 July – 8 August 1992, when ESA astronaut Claude Nicollier

5734-462: The LM carried on the top of the S-IVB stage with a small space station slightly larger than the CSM's service area, containing supplies and experiments for missions between 15 and 45 days' duration. Using this study as a baseline, a number of different mission profiles were looked at over the next six months. In November 1964, von Braun proposed a more ambitious plan to build a much larger station built from

5856-590: The NASA plans so that they would resemble MOL less. NASA management was concerned about losing the 400,000 workers involved in Apollo after landing on the Moon in 1969. A reason von Braun, head of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center during the 1960s, advocated a smaller station after his large one was not built was that he wished to provide his employees with work beyond developing the Saturn rockets, which would be completed relatively early during Project Apollo. NASA set up

5978-686: The Orbital Work Shop was used to store trash and wastewater, passed through an airlock . On August 8, 1969, the McDonnell Douglas Corporation received a contract for the conversion of two existing S-IVB stages to the Orbital Workshop configuration. One of the S-IV test stages was shipped to McDonnell Douglas for the construction of a mock-up in January 1970. The Orbital Workshop was renamed "Skylab" in February 1970 as

6100-474: The Orbital Workshop would be launched as a part of Apollo mission AS-209, originally one of the Earth-orbit CSM test launches, followed by two Saturn I/CSM crew launches, AAP-1 and AAP-2. The Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) remained AAP's chief competitor for funds, although the two programs cooperated on technology. NASA considered flying experiments on MOL or using its Titan IIIC booster instead of

6222-406: The S-IV stage, before it was replaced by the S-IVB. On April 1, 1966, MSC sent out contracts to Douglas, Grumman , and McDonnell for the conversion of an S-IVB spent stage, under the name Saturn S-IVB spent-stage experiment support module (SSESM). In May 1966, astronauts voiced concerns over the purging of the stage's hydrogen tank in space. Nevertheless, in late July 1966, it was announced that

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6344-482: The Shuttle's cargo bay. The components were arranged in various configurations to meet the needs of each spaceflight. Spacelab components flew on a total of about 32 Shuttle missions, depending on how such hardware and missions are tabulated. Spacelab allowed scientists to perform experiments in microgravity in geocentric orbit . There was a variety of Spacelab-associated hardware, so a distinction can be made between

6466-626: The Skylab digital computer. Two of three were active and their input was averaged, while the third was a backup. From NASA SP-400 Skylab, Our First Space Station , "each Skylab control-moment gyroscope consisted of a motor-driven rotor, electronics assembly, and power inverter assembly. The 21-inch-diameter (530 mm) rotor weighed 155 pounds (70 kg) and rotated at approximately 8950 revolutions per minute". There were three control moment gyroscopes on Skylab, but only two were required to maintain pointing. The control and sensor gyroscopes were part of

6588-579: The Skylab missions would last for months. NASA sent a scientist on Jacques Piccard 's Ben Franklin submarine in the Gulf Stream in July and August 1969 to learn how six people would live in an enclosed space for four weeks. Astronauts were uninterested in watching movies on a proposed entertainment center or in playing games, but they did want books and individual music choices. Food was also important; early Apollo crews complained about its quality, and

6710-874: The South Pacific Ocean. The Tiangong Space Station ( Chinese : 天宫 ; pinyin : Tiāngōng ; lit. 'Heavenly Palace'), the first module of which was launched on 29 April 2021, is in low Earth orbit, 340 to 450 kilometres above the Earth at an orbital inclination of 42° to 43°. Its planned construction via 11 total launches across 2021–2022 was intended to extend the core module with two laboratory modules, capable of hosting up to six crew. These space stations have been announced by their host entity and are currently in planning, development or production. The launch date listed here may change as more information becomes available. (~23,548 cu ft) (~15892 cu ft) While originally Lockheed Martin

6832-662: The Soviet Soyuz 11 crew aboard the space station Salyut 1 on June 30, 1971. Skylab 2 lasted 28 days, Skylab 3 – 56 days, and Skylab 4 – 84 days. Astronauts performed ten spacewalks, totaling 42 hours and 16 minutes. Skylab logged about 2,000 hours of scientific and medical experiments, 127,000 frames of film of the Sun and 46,000 of Earth. Solar experiments included photographs of eight solar flares and produced valuable results that scientists stated would have been impossible to obtain with uncrewed spacecraft. The existence of

6954-559: The Space Shuttle orbiter crew area. Spacelab missions typically supported multiple experiments, and the Spacelab 1 mission had experiments in the fields of space plasma physics, solar physics , atmospheric physics , astronomy , and Earth observation . The selection of appropriate modules was part of mission planning for Spacelab Shuttle missions, and for example, a mission might need less habitable space and more pallets, or vice versa. The habitable Spacelab laboratory module comprised

7076-511: The Sun's coronal holes was confirmed because of these efforts. Many of the experiments conducted investigated the astronauts' adaptation to extended periods of microgravity . A typical day began at 6 a.m. Central Time Zone . Although the toilet was small and noisy, both veteran astronauts – who had endured earlier missions' rudimentary waste-collection systems – and rookies complimented it. The first crew enjoyed taking

7198-755: The agency announced that the lunar mapping and base construction missions examined by the AAP were being canceled. Only the Earth-orbiting missions remained, namely the Orbital Workshop and Apollo Telescope Mount solar observatory . The success of Apollo 8 in December 1968, launched on the third flight of a Saturn V, made it likely that one would be available to launch a dry workshop. Later, several Moon missions were canceled as well, originally to be Apollo missions 18 through 20 . The cancellation of these missions freed up three Saturn V boosters for

7320-429: The amount of Spacelab hardware flown and the nature of each mission. There were at least 22 major Spacelab missions between 1983 and 1998, and Spacelab hardware was used on a number of other missions, with some of the Spacelab pallets being flown as late as 2008. In August 1973, NASA and European Space Research Organisation (ESRO), now European Space Agency or ESA, signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to build

7442-515: The areas of biology and biotech, technology development, educational activities, human research, physical science, and Earth and space science. Spacelab Spacelab was a reusable laboratory developed by European Space Agency (ESA) and used on certain spaceflights flown by the Space Shuttle . The laboratory comprised multiple components, including a pressurized module, an unpressurized carrier, and other related hardware housed in

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7564-593: The assembly of space stations prior to the launch of crew. The Russian "second-generation" modules are able to be reconfigured to suit changing needs. As of 2009, RKK Energia was considering the removal and reuse of some modules of the ROS on the Orbital Piloted Assembly and Experiment Complex after the end of mission is reached for the ISS. However, in September 2017, the head of Roscosmos said that

7686-552: The atmosphere on July 11, 1979, scattering debris across the Indian Ocean and Western Australia . As of 2024, Skylab was the only space station operated exclusively by the United States. A permanent station was planned starting in 1988, but its funding was canceled and U.S. participation shifted to the International Space Station in 1993. Skylab had a mass of 199,750 pounds (90,610 kg) with

7808-465: The birth of X-ray astronomy . Skylab had certain features to protect vulnerable technology from radiation . The window was vulnerable to darkening, and this darkening could affect experiment S190. As a result, a light shield that could be open or shut was designed and installed on Skylab. To protect a wide variety of films, used for a variety of experiments and for astronaut photography , there were five film vaults. There were four smaller film vaults in

7930-401: The complete set also included five external pallets for experiments in vacuum built by British Aerospace (BAe) and a pressurized "Igloo" containing the subsystems needed for the pallet-only flight configuration operation. Eight flight configurations were qualified, though more could be assembled if needed. The system had some unique features including an intended two-week turn-around time (for

8052-574: The crewed Shenzhou 10 in 2013. According to the China Manned Space Engineering Office , Tiangong-1 reentered over the South Pacific Ocean , northwest of Tahiti , on 2 April 2018 at 00:15 UTC. A second space laboratory Tiangong-2 was launched in September 2016, while a plan for Tiangong-3 was merged with Tiangong-2. The station made a controlled reentry on 19 July 2019 and burned up over

8174-450: The differential viability of the microbial cells, as a function of phylogenetic lineage, remain elusive. Like uncrewed spacecraft close to the Sun, space stations in the inner Solar System generally rely on solar panels to obtain power. Space station air and water is brought up in spacecraft from Earth before being recycled. Supplemental oxygen can be supplied by a solid fuel oxygen generator . The last military-use space station

8296-468: The environment and established comfortable working relationships with ground control. The figure (below) lists an overview of most major experiments. Skylab 4 carried out several more experiments, such as to observe Comet Kohoutek . Riccardo Giacconi shared the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physics for his study of X-ray astronomy , including the study of emissions from the Sun onboard Skylab, contributing to

8418-476: The first and only non-U.S. and non-European human space missions with complete German and Japanese control. The first West German mission Deutschland 1 (Spacelab-D1, DLR-1, NASA designation STS-61-A ) took place in 1985. A second similar mission, Deutschland 2 (Spacelab-D2, DLR-2, NASA designation STS-55 ), was first planned for 1988, but due to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster ,

8540-403: The first crew, of the ill-fated Soyuz 11 . Consecutively space stations have been operated since Skylab (1973) and occupied since 1987 with the Salyut successor Mir . Uninterrupted occupation has been sustained since the operational transition from the Mir to the International Space Station (ISS), with its first occupation in 2000. Currently there are two fully operational space stations –

8662-477: The first ever internal transfer of astronauts between two docked spaceships. In 1971, the Soviet Union developed and launched the world's first space station, Salyut 1 . The Almaz and Salyut series were eventually joined by Skylab , Mir , and Tiangong-1 and Tiangong-2 . The hardware developed during the initial Soviet efforts remains in use, with evolved variants comprising a considerable part of

8784-477: The first orbit on April 12, 1961, with Vostok 1 . The Apollo program had in its early planning instead of a lunar landing a crewed lunar orbital flight and an orbital laboratory station in orbit of Earth, at times called Project Olympus , as two different possible program goals, until the Kennedy administration sped ahead and made the Apollo program focus on what was originally planned to come after it,

8906-450: The following spacecraft. The Mir space station was in orbit from 1986 to 2001 and was supported and visited by the following spacecraft: Research conducted on the Mir included the first long term space based ESA research project EUROMIR   95 which lasted 179   days and included 35 scientific experiments. During the first 20 years of operation of the International Space Station, there were around 3,000 scientific experiments in

9028-795: The forward port of Harmony , requiring relocation of the PMA-2 . Axiom Space plans to attach up to two additional modules to its first core module, and send private astronauts to inhabit the modules. The modules would later detach into the Axiom Station in a manner similar to Russia's proposed OPSEK. China's first space laboratory, Tiangong-1 was launched in September 2011. The uncrewed Shenzhou 8 then successfully performed an automatic rendezvous and docking in November 2011. The crewed Shenzhou 9 then docked with Tiangong-1 in June 2012, followed by

9150-572: The free world with a really versatile laboratory system several years before it would have been possible if the United States had had to fund it on its own. And finally, it provided Europe with the systems development and management experience they needed to move into the exclusive manned space flight arena. In the early 1970s NASA shifted its focus from the Lunar missions to the Space Shuttle, and also space research. The Administrator of NASA at

9272-401: The heaviest items that had to be returned at the end of each mission. The heaviest canisters weighed 40 kg and could hold up to 16,000 frames of film. There were two types of gyroscopes on Skylab. Control-moment gyroscopes (CMG) could physically move the station, and rate gyroscopes measured the rate of rotation to find its orientation. The CMG helped provide the fine pointing needed by

9394-521: The idea of building a smaller "wet workshop" based on the S-IVB, launched as the second stage of a Saturn IB. A number of S-IVB-based stations were studied at MSC from mid-1965, which had much in common with the Skylab design that eventually flew. An airlock would be attached to the hydrogen tank, in the area designed to hold the LM , and a minimum amount of equipment would be installed in the tank itself in order to avoid taking up too much fuel volume. Floors of

9516-541: The influence of external and internal disturbance torques, such as gravity gradient and aerodynamic disturbances and onboard astronaut motion. Skylab was the first large spacecraft to use big gyroscopes, capable of controlling its attitude. The control could also be used to help point the instruments. The gyroscopes took about ten hours to get spun up if they were turned off. There was also a thruster system to control Skylab's attitude. There were 9 rate-gyroscope sensors, 3 for each axis. These were sensors that fed their output to

9638-469: The interior of the station. Industrial design firm Raymond Loewy /William Snaith recommended emphasizing habitability and comfort for the astronauts by providing a wardroom for meals and relaxation and a window to view Earth and space, although astronauts were dubious about the designers' focus on details such as color schemes. Habitability had not previously been an area of concern when building spacecraft due to their small size and brief mission durations, but

9760-522: The launch dates of July 28, 1973, (Skylab 3) and November 16, 1973, (Skylab 4), and mission durations of 59 and 84 days, respectively. The last Skylab crew returned to Earth on February 8, 1974. In addition to the three crewed missions, there was a rescue mission on standby that had a crew of two, but could take five back down. Also of note was the three-man crew of Skylab Medical Experiment Altitude Test (SMEAT), who spent 56 days in 1972 at low-pressure on Earth to evaluate medical experiment equipment. This

9882-462: The lost micrometeoroid shield further complicated matters by becoming tangled in the remaining solar panel, preventing its full deployment and thus leaving the station with a huge power deficit. Immediately following Skylab's launch, Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center was deactivated, and construction proceeded to modify it for the Space Shuttle program, originally targeting a maiden launch in March 1979 . The crewed missions to Skylab would occur using

10004-401: The lunar landing. The Project Olympus space station, or orbiting laboratory of the Apollo program, was proposed as an in-space unfolded structure with the Apollo command and service module docking. While never realized, the Apollo command and service module would perform docking maneuvers and eventually become a lunar orbiting module which was used for station-like purposes. But before that

10126-409: The major Spacelab program missions with European scientists running missions in the Spacelab habitable module, missions running other Spacelab hardware experiments, and other Space Transportation System (STS) missions that used some component of Spacelab hardware. There is some variation in counts of Spacelab missions, in part because there were different types of Spacelab missions with a large range in

10248-503: The much more expensive Saturn IB. The agency decided that the Air Force station was not large enough and that converting Apollo hardware for use with Titan would be too slow and too expensive. The DoD later canceled MOL in June 1969. Design work continued over the next two years, in an era of shrinking budgets. (NASA sought US$ 450 million for Apollo Applications in fiscal year 1967, for example, but received US$ 42 million.) In August 1967,

10370-403: The new stations allowed Progress supply vehicles to be docked to the station, meaning that fresh supplies could be brought to aid long-duration missions. This concept was expanded on Salyut 7, which "hard docked" with a TKS tug shortly before it was abandoned; this served as a proof of concept for the use of modular space stations. The later Salyuts may reasonably be seen as a transition between

10492-482: The orbital workshop had an empty mass of 2,398 pounds (1,088 kg). The four smaller vaults had combined mass of 1,545 lb (701 kg). The primary construction material of all five safes was aluminum. When Skylab re-entered there was one 180 pounds (82 kg) chunk of aluminum found that was thought to be a door to one of the film vaults. The large film vault was one of the heaviest single pieces of Skylab to re-enter Earth's atmosphere . The Skylab film vault

10614-402: The orbital workshop, the main habitable space inside Skylab. Electrical power came from solar arrays and fuel cells in the docked Apollo CSM. The rear of the station included a large waste tank, propellant tanks for maneuvering jets, and a heat radiator. Astronauts conducted numerous experiments aboard Skylab during its operational life. For the final two crewed missions to Skylab, NASA assembled

10736-414: The original Space Shuttle launch turn-around time) and the roll-on-roll-off for loading in aircraft (Earth-transportation). Spacelab consisted of a variety of interchangeable components, with the major one being a crewed laboratory that could be flown in the Space Shuttle orbiter's bay and returned to Earth. However, the habitable module did not have to be flown to conduct a Spacelab-type mission and there

10858-444: The outside of the S-II stage. One problem with this proposal was that it required a dedicated Saturn V launch to fly the station. At the time the design was being proposed, it was not known how many of the then-contracted Saturn Vs would be required to achieve a successful Moon landing. However, several planned Earth-orbit test missions for the LM and CSM had been canceled, leaving a number of Saturn IBs free for use. Further work led to

10980-516: The payload bay. IPS missions: The Spacelab 2 mission flew the Infrared Telescope (IRT), which was a 15.2 cm (6.0 in) aperture helium-cooled infrared telescope, observing light between wavelengths of 1.7 to 118 μm. IRT collected infrared data on 60% of the galactic plane. Examples of Spacelab components or hardware: The Extended Duration Orbiter (EDO) assembly was not Spacelab hardware, strictly speaking. However, it

11102-417: The rapidly forming NASA. Although concentrating on the Moon missions, von Braun also detailed an orbiting laboratory built out of a Horizon upper stage, an idea used for Skylab. A number of NASA centers studied various space station designs in the early 1960s. Studies generally looked at platforms launched by the Saturn V, followed up by crews launched on Saturn IB using an Apollo command and service module , or

11224-459: The risk of debris landing in populated areas, targeting the south Indian Ocean, which was partially successful. Debris showered Western Australia , and recovered pieces indicated that the station had disintegrated lower than expected. As the Skylab program drew to a close, NASA's focus had shifted to the development of the Space Shuttle. NASA space station and laboratory projects included Spacelab , Shuttle- Mir , and Space Station Freedom , which

11346-453: The station would be made from an open metal framework that allowed the fuel to flow through it. After launch, a follow-up mission launched by a Saturn IB would launch additional equipment, including solar panels, an equipment section and docking adapter, and various experiments. Douglas Aircraft Company , builder of the S-IVB stage, was asked to prepare proposals along these lines. The company had for several years been proposing stations based on

11468-674: The station. The crew deployed a parasol-like sunshade through a small instrument port from the inside of the station, bringing station temperatures down to acceptable levels and preventing overheating that would have melted the plastic insulation inside the station and released poisonous gases. This solution was designed by Jack Kinzler , who won the NASA Distinguished Service Medal for his efforts. The crew conducted further repairs via two spacewalks ( extravehicular activity or EVA). The crew stayed in orbit with Skylab for 28 days. Two additional missions followed, with

11590-551: The sun and cold temperatures for long periods of time. They are typically made from stainless steel , titanium and high-quality aluminum alloys , with layers of insulation such as Kevlar as a ballistics shield protection. The International Space Station (ISS) has a single inflatable module, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module , which was installed in April   2016 after being delivered to

11712-594: The systems derived from it. These systems include the ATV and Cygnus spacecraft used to transfer payloads to the International Space Station , and the Columbus , Harmony and Tranquility modules of the International Space Station . The Spacelab 2 mission surveyed 60% of the galactic plane in infrared in 1985. Spacelab was an extremely large program, and this was enhanced by different experiments and multiple payloads and configurations over two decades. For example, in

11834-529: The technical feasibility of separating the station to form OPSEK had been studied, and there were now no plans to separate the Russian segment from the ISS. In contrast, the main US modules launched on the Space Shuttle and were attached to the ISS by crews during EVAs . Connections for electrical power, data, propulsion, and cooling fluids are also made at this time, resulting in an integrated block of modules that

11956-404: The time moved the focus from a new space station to a space laboratory for the planned Space Shuttle. This would allow technologies for future space stations to be researched and harness the capabilities of the Space Shuttle for research. Spacelab was produced by European Space Research Organisation (ESRO), a consortium of ten European countries including: In addition to the laboratory module,

12078-519: The two groups. Unlike previous stations, the Soviet space station Mir had a modular design ; a core unit was launched, and additional modules, generally with a specific role, were later added. This method allows for greater flexibility in operation, as well as removing the need for a single immensely powerful launch vehicle . Modular stations are also designed from the outset to have their supplies provided by logistical support craft, which allows for

12200-466: The water tank. After dinner, which was scheduled for 6 p.m., crews performed household chores and prepared for the next day's experiments. Following lengthy daily instructions (some of which were up to 15 meters long) sent via teleprinter , the crews were often busy enough to postpone sleep. The station offered what a later study called "a highly satisfactory living and working environment for crews", with enough room for personal privacy. Although it had

12322-606: The weeks or months that current missions typically last. Possible solutions include the creation of artificial gravity by a rotating structure , the inclusion of radiation shielding , and the development of on-site agricultural ecosystems. Some designs might even accommodate large numbers of people, becoming essentially "cities in space" where people would reside semi-permanently. Molds that develop aboard space stations can produce acids that degrade metal, glass, and rubber. Despite an expanding array of molecular approaches for detecting microorganisms, rapid and robust means of assessing

12444-402: Was Salyut 1 , which was launched by the Soviet Union on April 19, 1971. The early Soviet stations were all designated "Salyut", but among these, there were two distinct types: civilian and military. The military stations, Salyut 2 , Salyut 3 , and Salyut 5 , were also known as Almaz stations. The civilian stations Salyut 6 and Salyut 7 were built with two docking ports, which allowed

12566-428: Was a spaceflight analog test in full gravity, but Skylab hardware was tested and medical knowledge was gained. Originally intended to be visited by one 28–day and two 56–day missions for a total of 140 days, Skylab was ultimately occupied for 171 days and 13 hours during its three crewed expeditions, orbiting the Earth 2,476 times. Each of these extended the human record of 23 days for amount of time spent in space set by

12688-403: Was a variety of pallets and other hardware supporting space research. The habitable module expanded the volume for astronauts to work in a shirt-sleeve environment and had space for equipment racks and related support equipment. When the habitable module was not used, some of the support equipment for the pallets could instead be housed in the smaller Igloo , a pressurized cylinder connected to

12810-492: Was also possible to operate Spacelab experiments from the orbiter's aft flight deck. The pressurized tunnel had its connection point at the orbiter's mid-deck. There were two different length tunnels depending on the location of the habitable module in the payload bay. When the laboratory module was not used, but additional space was needed for support equipment, another structure called the Igloo could be used. Two laboratory modules were built, identified as LM1 and LM2. LM1

12932-408: Was bland and repetitive, and weightlessness caused utensils, food containers, and bits of food to float away; also, gas in their drinking water contributed to flatulence . After breakfast and preparation for lunch, experiments, tests and repairs of spacecraft systems and, if possible, 90 minutes of physical exercise followed; the station had a bicycle and other equipment, and astronauts could jog around

13054-473: Was bought by NASA for its own use from ERNO. Construction on the Spacelab modules began in 1974 by what was then the company ERNO-VFW-Fokker. Spacelab is important to all of us for at least four good reasons. It expanded the Shuttle's ability to conduct science on-orbit manyfold. It provided a marvelous opportunity and example of a large international joint venture involving government, industry, and science with our European allies. The European effort provided

13176-592: Was built out of it. This was the final flight for the rocket more commonly known for carrying the crewed Apollo Moon landing missions. Three subsequent missions delivered three-astronaut crews in the Apollo CSM launched by the smaller Saturn IB rocket. Skylab included the Apollo Telescope Mount (a multi-spectral solar observatory), a multiple docking adapter with two docking ports, an airlock module with extravehicular activity (EVA) hatches, and

13298-514: Was delayed until 1993. It became the first German human space mission after German reunification . The only Japan mission, Spacelab-J (NASA designation STS-47 ), took place in 1992. Spacelab-4, Spacelab-5, and other planned Spacelab missions were cancelled due to the late development of the Shuttle and the Challenger disaster. The legacy of Spacelab lives on in the form of the MPLMs and

13420-426: Was designed for about 6 pints (2.8 liters) of water per shower, the water being drawn from the personal hygiene water tank. The use of both the liquid soap and water was carefully planned out, with enough soap and warm water for one shower per week per person. Space station Space stations have been hosting the only continuous presence of humans in space . The first space station was Salyut 1 (1971), hosting

13542-525: Was documented in 1962 by the Douglas Aircraft Company . The Department of Defense (DoD) and NASA cooperated closely in many areas of space. In September 1963, NASA and the DoD agreed to cooperate in building a space station. The DoD wanted its own crewed facility, however, and in December 1963 it announced Manned Orbital Laboratory (MOL), a small space station primarily intended for photo reconnaissance using large telescopes directed by

13664-503: Was flown on Spacelab 2 , ASTRO-1 , ATLAS-1, ATLAS-2, ATLAS-3, and ASTRO-2. A Spacelab Igloo is on display at the James S. McDonnell Space Hangar at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in the US. The IPS was a gimbaled pointing device, capable of aiming telescopes, cameras, or other instruments. IPS was used on three different Space Shuttle missions between 1985 and 1995. IPS was manufactured by Dornier , and two units were made. The IPS

13786-624: Was included in the project, as of 2024, it appears their primary role has been filled by Airbus , to provide the main habitat for the station. As of 2024, they are no longer listed as a partner on Starlab's website. (14,126 cu ft) (29,000 cu ft) Two types of space stations have been flown: monolithic and modular. Monolithic stations consist of a single vehicle and are launched by one rocket. Modular stations consist of two or more separate vehicles that are launched independently and docked on orbit. Modular stations are currently preferred due to lower costs and greater flexibility. A space station

13908-458: Was merged into the International Space Station. Rocket engineer Wernher von Braun , science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke , and other early advocates of crewed space travel, expected until the 1960s that a space station would be an important early step in space exploration. Von Braun participated in the publishing of a series of influential articles in Collier's magazine from 1952 to 1954, titled " Man Will Conquer Space Soon! ". He envisioned

14030-496: Was on board Space Shuttle Atlantis to deploy ESA's European Retrievable Carrier (Eureca) scientific mission and the joint NASA/ASI ( Italian Space Agency ) Tethered Satellite System (TSS-1). The Pallet carried TSS-1 in the Shuttle's cargo bay. Another Spacelab Pallet is on display at the U.S. National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. There was a total of ten space-flown Spacelab pallets. On spaceflights where

14152-492: Was primarily constructed out of aluminum, steel, and multi-layer insulation . IPS would be mounted inside the payload bay of the Space Shuttle Orbiter, and could provide gimbaled 3-axis pointing. It was designed for a pointing accuracy of less than 1 arcsecond (a unit of degree), and three pointing modes including Earth, Sun, and Stellar focused modes. The IPS was mounted on a pallet exposed to outer space in

14274-652: Was recommissioned in 2000 for flight on STS-99 . The "Spacelab Pallet – Deployable 1 (SLP-D1) with Canadian Dextre (Purpose Dexterous Manipulator)" was launched on STS-123 . The Spacelab components were used on 41 Shuttle missions in total. The habitable modules were flown on 16 Space Shuttle missions in the 1980s and 1990s. Spacelab Pallet missions were flown 6 times and Spacelab Pallets were flown on other missions 19 times. Mission name acronyms: Besides contributing to ESA missions, Germany and Japan each funded their own Space Shuttle and Spacelab missions. Although superficially similar to other flights, they were actually

14396-406: Was removed and replaced with Skylab, but with the controlling Instrument Unit remaining in its standard position. Skylab was launched on May 14, 1973, by the modified Saturn V. The launch is sometimes referred to as Skylab 1. Severe damage was sustained during launch and deployment, including the loss of the station's micrometeoroid shield/sun shade and one of its main solar panels . Debris from

14518-706: Was the Soviet Salyut 5 , which was launched under the Almaz program and orbited between 1976 and 1977. Space stations have harboured so far the only long-duration direct human presence in space. After the first station, Salyut 1 (1971), and its tragic Soyuz 11 crew, space stations have been operated consecutively since Skylab (1973–1974), having allowed a progression of long-duration direct human presence in space. Long-duration resident crews have been joined by visiting crews since 1977 ( Salyut 6 ), and stations have been occupied by consecutive crews since 1987 with

14640-480: Was unexpectedly occupied by the "parasol" that replaced the missing meteorite shield, a few experiments were instead installed outside with the telescopes during spacewalks or shifted to the Earth-facing scientific airlock. Skylab 2 spent less time than planned on most experiments due to station repairs. On the other hand, Skylab 3 and Skylab 4 far exceeded the initial experiment plans, once the crews adjusted to

14762-452: Was used for storing film from various sources including the Apollo Telescope Mount solar instruments. Six ATM experiments used film to record data, and over the course of the missions over 150,000 successful exposures were recorded. The film canister had to be manually retrieved on crewed spacewalks to the instruments during the missions. The film canisters were returned to Earth aboard the Apollo capsules when each mission ended, and were among

14884-594: Was used most often on Spacelab flights. Also, NASA later used it with the SpaceHab modules. Spacelab components flew on 22 Space Shuttle missions from November 1983 to April 1998. The Spacelab components were decommissioned in 1998, except the Pallets. Science work was moved to the International Space Station (ISS) and Spacehab module, a pressurized carrier similar to the Spacelab Module. A Spacelab Pallet

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