Tags: NASA, Debris, Skylab, Solar Maximum
Publication: Guardian.co.uk
Publication Date: 05/13/2013

Skylab. Image credit: NASA

Forty years ago NASA launched Skylab, America’s first space station. As part of an initiative to reuse the hardware the agency developed to land on the moon, the station was launched into orbit on May 14, 1973 on board one of the last Saturn V rockets.

Skylab’s most important contribution to science was its continuous monitoring of solar activity. Crews aboard the station would take four-hour shifts to control the special telescope that would capture groundbreaking images and data about the sun. A total of 160,000 images were collected during the nine months that Skylab was manned.

However, besides its importance toward understanding the sun, Skylab was also a key lesson for orbital debris.

When NASA decided to dedicate its investments into the shuttle program, Skylab was abandoned. While the agency’s plan was to ultimately place the station on a higher orbit where it could await refurbishment, ironically, the sun got in the way.

An unexpected rise in the number of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) – which Skylab’s crew discovered in the first place – caused our atmosphere to expand and increase the drag on the station, making it pull out of orbit faster than NASA expected.

While the agency tried to salvage Skylab, on July 11, 1979, the 85-ton space station inevitably came crashing down to Earth striking western Australia.

Almost 35 years after Skylab’s dramatic return to Earth, not much has changed. The questions and risks about orbital debris are almost the same.

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