Skylab
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Observations made by astronauts aboard Skylab enabled a huge advance in our understanding of solar phenomena. Here a solar prominence is captured in ultraviolet light by the solar coronagraph operated by US astronaut Owen Garriot of the Skylab 3 mission.
US space station, launched on 14 May 1973, made from the adapted upper stage of a Saturn V rocket. At 75 tonnes, it was the heaviest object ever put into space and had a length of 25.6 m/84 ft. Skylab contained a workshop for carrying out experiments in weightlessness, an observatory for monitoring the Sun, and cameras for photographing the Earth's surface.
Damaged during launch, it had to be repaired by the first crew of astronauts. Three crews, each of three astronauts, occupied Skylab for periods of up to 84 days, at that time a record duration for human space flight. Skylab finally fell to Earth on 11 July 1979, dropping debris on Western Australia.
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