ropes were all these different umbrellas and parasols and sails and also the equipment that we had selected to try and free up the solar panel, which was a pretty eclectic collection of aluminium poles that could be connected together, and a Southwestern Bell Telephone Company tree-lopper with brown ropes to open and close the jaws. They handed us the checklist and said ‘This is how to operate that stuff.’ Some of it we’d seen, some of it we hadn’t!” The astronauts were unperturbed. Indeed, as their Saturn IB rocket cleared the Pad 39B tower and roared into the clear morning sky, Conrad declared that his crew could fix anything. Launch was on time and kicked off an eight-hour orbital ballet to rendezvous with the crippled station. Conrad’s call of “Tally-ho the Skylab!” as a steadily brightening star on the horizon drew closer masked, at first, the seriousness of what the astronauts were about to face. The micrometeoroid shield was
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indeed gone, as was one of the two solar arrays, whilst the second was jammed by debris. As Weitz took pictures, Conrad performed a flyaround inspection, quickly ascertaining that the scientific airlock was not cluttered with debris, thereby making the deployment of the Houston parasol a realistic option, and asserting his conviction that a stand-up EVA with the cutter should be enough to free the jammed solar array. The first order of business was a ‘soft docking’ at Skylab’s forward port, engaging capture latches but not retracting the command module’s docking probe to ensure a firm metallic embrace. After a quick lunch, Conrad undocked from Skylab, depressurised the cabin and opened the side hatch. With Kerwin hanging onto his ankles for stability, Weitz tried to use the modified tree loppers and a kind of ‘shepherd’s crook’ to free the jammed array. Unfortunately, despite his sterling efforts, it did not go well. At first, Weitz positioned himself with his upper body poking through the hatch into the ethereal blackness of space. Kerwin passed him three sections to assemble a 4.5 m pole with the loppers on the end, whilst Conrad kept the spacecraft steady. “We had seen…that there was a piece of bolted L-sections from the thermal shield that had been wrapped up around the top of the solar wing,” Weitz recalled, “and apparently the bolt heads were driven into the aluminium skin. We thought maybe we’d just break it loose, so we got down near the end of the solar array and I got a hold of it with the shepherd’s crook. What we really hadn’t thought about was – in heaving on it, trying to break the thing free – what I was doing, in effect, was pulling the command module in towards the workshop.” Weitz could quickly ascertain that he was physically moving Skylab, because its thrusters were spitting and spurting to maintain its attitude and correct the oscillations. Meanwhile, Conrad had the un-
MISSIONS continued from page 35 Skylab 3 The second crew of Al Bean (Commander), Owen Garriott (Science Pilot) and Jack Lousma (Pilot) were launched on 28 July 1973 and spent 59 days aboard Skylab. Their mission was almost shortened when a problem was found with maneuvering thrusters on their command module, but turned into a remarkable success, despite episodes of space sickness which affected all three men.
Skylab Rescue When a problem was found with the Skylab 3 crew’s spacecraft, a second craft was hurriedly prepared on the ground to rescue them if needed. Astronauts Vance Brand (Commander) and Don Lind (Pilot) were trained to fly a five-seater Apollo to dock with Skylab and bring Bean, Garriott and Lousma home. As circumstances transpired, the problem was steadily resolved and the rescue mission became unnecessary.
Skylab 4 The third and final crew of Jerry Carr (Commander), Ed Gibson (Science Pilot) and Bill Pogue (Pilot) were launched on 16 November 1973 and spent 84 days aboard Skylab. This was a world endurance record which lasted until 1978. Despite early incidents of space sickness and an overly ambitious schedule, which left the crew overworked
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