Skylab


Low Earth Orbit Government Founded: May 14, 1973 Mass: 77.0 T Volume: 351m^3
Status - De-Orbited
Details

Skylab was a United States space station launched and operated by NASA, and occupied for about 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974 – the only space station the U.S. has operated exclusively. In 1979 it fell back to Earth amid huge worldwide media attention. Skylab included a workshop, a solar observatory, and other systems necessary for crew survival and scientific experiments. It was launched unmanned by a modified Saturn V rocket, with a weight of 170,000 pounds (77,000 kg). Lifting Skylab into low earth orbit was the final mission and launch of a Saturn V rocket (famous for carrying the manned Moon landing missions). Three missions delivered three-astronaut crews in the Apollo command and service module (Apollo CSM), launched by the smaller Saturn IB rocket. For the final two manned missions to Skylab, a backup Apollo CSM/Saturn IB was assembled and made ready in case an in-orbit rescue mission was needed, but this backup vehicle was never flown.

Agencies


National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Government
Administrator: Bill Nelson
NASA 1958

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. NASA have many launch facilities but most are inactive. The most commonly used pad will be LC-39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.




KAIROS
Failure
12 hours, 1 minute ago
Flight 2
Space One Launch Pad - Spaceport Kii, Japan

Second flight of the KAIROS launch vehicle. 5 satellites for testing various technologies will be on board: * TATARA-1 * PARUS-T1A * SC-Sat1…


Falcon 9
Success
15 hours, 35 minutes ago
O3b mPower 7 & 8
Launch Complex 39A - Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA

Seventh and eighth of a constellation of eleven high-throughput communications satellites in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) built by Boeing and operated by…


Falcon 9
Success
1 day ago
NROL-149
Space Launch Complex 4E - Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA

Sixth batch of satellites for a reconnaissance satellite constellation built by SpaceX and Northrop Grumman for the National Reconnaissance Office to…


Falcon 9
Success
1 day, 13 hours ago
GPS III SV07 (RRT-1)
Space Launch Complex 40 - Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA

GPS-III (Global Positioning System) is the first evolution stage of the third generation of the GPS satellites. It consists of the first ten (known a…


Long March 2D
Success
1 day, 19 hours ago
PIESAT-2 09-12
Launch Complex 9 - Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China

4 X-band synthetic-aperture radar Earth observation satellites for the Chinese Earth observation satellite company PIESAT.