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Author
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Topic: NASA's backup plans if Skylab was lost
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Yanksman2001
Member Posts: 24
From: Long Island City, NY, USA
Registered: Jul 2004
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posted 06-20-2005 09:52 AM
   
Did NASA have any backup plans even before the launch of the Skylab module in the event it failed to reach orbit or been unoccupiable. Would the remaining two or three crews been sent on two week Earth orbital flights since there were no more Saturn V rockets to fly lunar orbital flights? Would NASA have just gone ahead with Apollo-Soyuz? |
thump
Member Posts: 578
From: washington dc usa
Registered: May 2004
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posted 06-20-2005 10:26 AM
The backup Skylab is now located at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. My understanding is that had the original Skylab not reached orbit, the backup then would have been launched. |
dtemple
Member Posts: 757
From: Longview, Texas, USA
Registered: Apr 2000
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posted 06-20-2005 06:02 PM
There was another Saturn V available to launch the backup Skylab space station. In fact, two Saturn Vs were left over from Apollo. These two are displayed at Kennedy Space Center and Johnson Space Center. The backup Skylab was built from the S-IVB of Saturn V SA-515. The Skylab that was orbited was built from the S-IVB of SA-212 — a Saturn 1B. The first stage of "212" was reportedly scrapped. |
DavidH
Member Posts: 1263
From: Huntsville, AL, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted 06-21-2005 10:05 AM
Of course, whether funding would have been assigned to launching the back-up Skylab after a spectacular failure in that climate, that's another question entirely. |
Fra Mauro
Member Posts: 1739
From: Bethpage, N.Y.
Registered: Jul 2002
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posted 04-26-2019 09:43 AM
Are there any photos of the Skylab backup at the Cape? |
Jim Behling
Member Posts: 1761
From: Cape Canaveral, FL
Registered: Mar 2010
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posted 04-26-2019 12:58 PM
It wasn't shipped I believe.
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Fra Mauro
Member Posts: 1739
From: Bethpage, N.Y.
Registered: Jul 2002
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posted 04-26-2019 05:15 PM
In some ways it makes sense but why would you order something and not have it delivered? NASA certainly wouldn't expect it to fly (anticipating a disaster) but it shows there were no plans to use it. |
Delta7
Member Posts: 1718
From: Bluffton IN USA
Registered: Oct 2007
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posted 04-26-2019 05:41 PM
At one point I believe there were plans to launch the second orbital workshop after Skylab, and have the Skylab backup crews (Schweikart, Musgrave, McCandless/Brand, Lenoir, Lind) fly two long duration missions aboard it. |
LM-12
Member Posts: 3723
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Oct 2010
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posted 04-26-2019 08:34 PM
The "Saturn Illustrated Chronology" has the S-IVB for AS-515 on dock at KSC on May 25, 1972. |
Paul78zephyr
Member Posts: 784
From: Hudson, MA
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted 01-29-2023 05:23 PM
Would the Skylab have been recoverable/repairable/usable had both solar arrays been torn off during launch? |
Blackarrow
Member Posts: 3551
From: Belfast, United Kingdom
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 01-30-2023 09:34 AM
It was initially feared that both solar arrays HAD been lost, although it then was noted that one array was generating a trickle of power, suggesting that it was intact but unable to unfurl. The Conrad crew was launched with equipment specially designed to allow the crew to release the trapped array. The first attempt failed (before docking) but of course the second attempt succeeded during an EVA on 7th June, 1973 (Day 14 of a planned 28-day mission). Obviously, the crew were able to operate in that period without either solar array.According to "Living and Working in Space: A History of Skylab" (NASA SP-4208) at p.255: If the workshop solar panels were indeed gone, Skylab had lost nearly half of its electrical power. The workshop and ATM array [the separate solar array looking like a windmill's sails] each provided about 5 kilowatts of usable power. Apollo fuel cells could produce an additional 1.2 kilowatts for 20 days... The system had been designed with power to spare; even without the workshop panels, officials believed an adequate mission was possible until Apollo's fuel cells ran dry. Then the crew would be forced to curtail most experiments for the last week. So the first crew was capable of operating Skylab for at least part of the planned 28 days without either solar array, and might even have been able to achieve the full 28 days by shutting down most of their power-consuming experiments.What if NASA had known for a fact after the Skylab launch that both panels had been lost? I must assume the Conrad crew would still have been launched, if only to see what was salvageable. The far greater INITIAL problem for Skylab was the loss of the meteoroid shield, resulting in thermal damage to the outer skin and a huge rise in internal temperatures which (as I recall at the time) threatened to ruin all the film stock and the food, and even force cynanide gas out of certain plastics on board. If the temperature problem had not been resolved, Skylab would have been lost. The only way to fix the heat problem was to launch the Conrad crew with a device to protect the workshop from the sun. This became the famous "parasol" which did the job until the Bean crew fitted an improved sunshield. Unless anyone is privy to the decision-making processes within NASA at the time, I must assume that even if both solar arrays had definitely been lost, NASA would have launched the Conrad crew with the parasol to resolve the overheating problem. That would have allowed time to plan a possibly-truncated mission depending on the availability of power. While there is life (i.e. Skylab's life) there is hope, and a partial success for the Conrad crew (say, a 20-day mission mainly partly relying on Apollo's fuel cells) could have allowed plans to be developed for at least one more mission. Not ideal, but NASA has always been resourceful and I don't believe they would abandoned Skylab even if both solar arrays had been lost. |
Headshot
Member Posts: 1175
From: Vancouver, WA, USA
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 01-30-2023 10:57 AM
NASA considered launching a solar array module (SAM) that would have been attached to the Skylab multiple docking adapter port, on the side opposite the Apollo Telescope Mount. A power umbilical from SAM would have been pulled through the docking port and attached to the main Skylab power system.SAM featured two additional solar wings. The weight of the module would have been around 4600 pounds and would have provided an additional 2000 watts of power. It would have, however, blocked some of Skylab's Earth resource sensors. An article, with diagrams, appears on pgs 49-50 of the 2 July 1973 issue of AW&ST. |
Paul78zephyr
Member Posts: 784
From: Hudson, MA
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted 01-30-2023 09:33 PM
Thank you for that info. Does the AWST article say how the SAM would have been launched to the Skylab? quote:
Originally posted by Blackarrow:
I must assume the Conrad crew would still have been launched, if only to see what was salvageable.
That is a very interesting speculation. Thank you. |
Jim Behling
Member Posts: 1761
From: Cape Canaveral, FL
Registered: Mar 2010
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posted 01-31-2023 07:15 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Paul78zephyr:
...how the SAM would have been launched to the Skylab?
The same way the ASTP docking module was. quote:
Originally posted by Fra Mauro:
In some ways it makes sense but why would you order something and not have it delivered?
Shipping to the Cape does not equate to being delivered. Many spacecraft are "delivered" accepted by the government at the factory and then wait for the appropriate time to be shipped to launch site. Also, Skylab was made in four distinct elements that did not meet up until the launch site. Only the orbital workshop is at the National Air and Space Museum, the MDA, Airlock and ATM are elsewhere. |
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