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[b]Space Cover 722: Skylab 3 at 50[/b] Well, we just passed the 50th anniversary of Skylab 3, the second crew to inhabit Skylab. And since the Space Cover of the Week has yet to do an article on Skylab 3, it's time! Above is a cover postmarked onboard the USS New Orleans on September 26, 1973, the day [b]after[/b] it recovered the Skylab 3 crew from their wildly successful 59-day flight. What's the big deal about the day after postmark? For this mission, and several other late Apollo missions, the ship's post office was closed on the recovery day, and all of the requests for recovery covers were sent to shore post offices to get the prime recovery ship postmark on the day of recovery. So most of the prime recovery covers out there for Apollo 17, Skylabs 2 through 4, and ASTP, postmarked on their recovery day, weren't actually on the ship! A few crewmembers and guests onboard the ship did get covers postmarked the day after the recovery when the ship's post office was re-opened. So the cover above was actually on the USS New Orleans on recovery day and was mailed out the day after. The unique cachet has sometimes, and erroneously, been called the Captain's Cover, but it cannot be traced back to the Captain. These cachets were brought onboard the New Orleans by collector Dr. Ben Ramkissoon who had a press pass to cover the recovery. And astute recovery ship expert Ross Smith has even noted that the handwriting on this cover's address looks a lot like Dr. Ben's. The Skylab 3 crew of Alan Bean, Owen Garriott, and Jack Lousma launched on July 28, 1973. They docked with the Skylab station that day. Building on the repair efforts of the first Skylab crew to make the damaged space station usable, the Skylab 3 crew performed more repairs then went full-tilt into science operations. EVAs were performed on: [list][*]August 6, 1973 when Lousma and Garriott deployed a new sunshade, placed film in the telescope cameras, and troubleshot leaks and short circuits on a 6-1/2 hour EVA. [*]August 24, 1973 when Lousma and Garriott replaced the Skylab's gyroscopes, changed telescope film, and retrieved a space dust collection experiment on a 4-1/2 hour EVA. [*]September 22, 1973 when Bean and Garriott collected all the telescope film packages during a 2-1/2 hour EVA in preparation for returning to Earth.[/list] Some drama arose during the mission when two of the four reaction-control-system (RCS) thruster pods on the crew's Apollo command/service module (CSM) developed leaks. The Saturn 1B for the next Skylab mission was rolled out to the pad at KSC on August 14, 1973 in case a rescue mission was needed. However, further degradation of the Skylab 3 RCS system did not occur and (as you see above) the Skylab 3 mission returned to Earth nominally. Droves of covers exist for the Skylab 3 launch, docking, EVAs, science experiments, rescue mission preps, and recovery. Do you have any favorites? If so, please post them!
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