Post 7: Skylab 2 and Skylab Repairs
Well, it's Wednesday again, and you know what that means: new ETS! Today's mission:
FIX ALL THE THINGS!
Eyes Turned Skywards, Post #7:
Ten days after Skylab's launch, another launch day dawned cold and clear at the Cape after a late January cold snap and overnight freeze. While those at the Cape were confident that the cold snap and freeze would not hamper their ability to conduct launch operations, flight controllers in Houston were less sure. The future of the program had been gambled upon the success of Skylab, and any failure now could be fatal not just to the crippled station in orbit, but to NASA in its entirety. Having participated in some of the development effort at NASA to find a solution to the myriad issues plaguing Skylab, the astronauts were more sanguine about their prospects than the flight controllers. Commander Pete Conrad summed this up in a phrase shortly after liftoff that quickly became the unofficial motto of the mission: "We Fix Anything". Additionally, however, it was obvious that there was an urgent need to repair the station. Another five days of non-functionality could permanently cripple the station and prevent it from ever being used, and without NASA ever attempting a repair. In the end, go-ahead was given and Skylab 2 experienced a picture-perfect liftoff, smoothly climbing into orbit ready to rendezvous with the station and begin repair attempts.
The first priority was to examine the jammed solar panel. It was possible that it was merely stuck, and a good hard pull would set it free, but the data flight planners had available could not resolve the issue. After rendezvousing and taking a short lunch break, the crew set out to discover if this was the case. Visual inspection seemed to be favorable, although not compelling, and they were given the go ahead to make the attempt, with Paul Weitz taking the lead during the EVA. Unfortunately, things would not prove so simple. While Weitz was able to use the "shepard's crook" tool to grab the stuck panel, his efforts to simply pull it free were futile, instead causing noticeable motion of both the Apollo spacecraft and the station itself. Faced with this defeat, ground planners decided to instead focus on deployment of the parasol developed at Johnson Space Center. While the power supply issues caused by the jammed panel were serious, the extremely high interior temperatures caused by the loss of the sunshade/micrometeroid shield were far more pressing. Happily, the high temperatures had not caused toxic materials in the interior to degass, and the parasol was quickly and successfully deployed from the sun-side scientific airlock. Unfortunately, this would prevent some of the planned scientific agenda from taking place, as the airlock remained blocked for the remainder of Skylab's lifespan.
With the failure of the first attempt to unjam the solar panel and the success of parasol deployment, the Skylab 2 crew settled in to begin working on their scientific agenda while the ground crew worked on a different procedure to fix the station's power supply problems during a space walk near the end of the flight. This agenda consisted of three major areas: solar physics, earth observation, and biomedical studies, with observations of Comet Kohoutek (then close to perihelion) also included when possible. Each proved highly successful, with the biomedical research providing particularly important results that validated NASA's focus on further space station development. Contrary to the fears of some before the flight, astronauts proved entirely able to function in space and space sickness turned out to be much less debilitating on long missions than had previously been suspected. Indeed, being in space appeared to provide some protection against motion sickness, at least once an initial acclimatization period was completed.
Finally, after several weeks on the station, the ground crew had developed a plan to unjam the solar panel and restore full functionality to the station. The first step would be building a jury-rigged EVA path from the edge of the main Skylab module to the solar panel root. As it was never intended that astronauts would be spacewalking down the habitat, and the outer skin was supposed to be protected behind a pop-out solar/micrometeroid shield, no handholds, footholds, or other assistance devices had been provided leading to the spot, and from Gemini experience NASA knew that it would be nearly impossible for astronauts to reach the panel without something to hold on to. Using this rail, one of the spacewalkers would move to the panel and place a cutting tool on the strap which had prevented the panel from opening. Then, using the improvised EVA rail as a lever, he would force the cutting tool's jaws closed and cut the strap. Unfortunately, this would not quite be the end, as the panel mechanism had probably jammed due to space exposure since launch. Therefore, the rail would see one final use to help force the mechanism open, hopefully curing Skylab's power supply woes once and for all. After an intensive review of the plan with the ground and a good night's sleep, Pete Conrad and Joe Kerwin stepped out of the airlock nearly halfway through the mission to begin their spacewalk. Three and a half hours later, they reentered the airlock having accomplished the first inflight repair of a spacecraft in history (and what was at that point the longest spacewalk in history). The solar panel had been successfully deployed, and juice was already flowing into the station's batteries.
After the drama of Skylab's first few weeks, the remainder of the mission seemed to flash by as if a dream. Another spacewalk took place nearly two weeks after the main one, this time to retrieve and change out film in the Apollo Telescope Mount, but it was no longer a life-and-death matter. The success of the repair had boosted NASA's credibility to new heights back on Earth. Critics who had questioned the value of astronauts and the usefulness of space stations as opposed to robotic platforms were silenced by the salvaging of a mission that would otherwise have caused the write off of hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars of equipment and training. Finally, after 28 days in space, the first Skylab crew returned to Earth, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean near the recovery ship USS New Orleans.
FIX ALL THE THINGS!
Eyes Turned Skywards, Post #7:
Ten days after Skylab's launch, another launch day dawned cold and clear at the Cape after a late January cold snap and overnight freeze. While those at the Cape were confident that the cold snap and freeze would not hamper their ability to conduct launch operations, flight controllers in Houston were less sure. The future of the program had been gambled upon the success of Skylab, and any failure now could be fatal not just to the crippled station in orbit, but to NASA in its entirety. Having participated in some of the development effort at NASA to find a solution to the myriad issues plaguing Skylab, the astronauts were more sanguine about their prospects than the flight controllers. Commander Pete Conrad summed this up in a phrase shortly after liftoff that quickly became the unofficial motto of the mission: "We Fix Anything". Additionally, however, it was obvious that there was an urgent need to repair the station. Another five days of non-functionality could permanently cripple the station and prevent it from ever being used, and without NASA ever attempting a repair. In the end, go-ahead was given and Skylab 2 experienced a picture-perfect liftoff, smoothly climbing into orbit ready to rendezvous with the station and begin repair attempts.
The first priority was to examine the jammed solar panel. It was possible that it was merely stuck, and a good hard pull would set it free, but the data flight planners had available could not resolve the issue. After rendezvousing and taking a short lunch break, the crew set out to discover if this was the case. Visual inspection seemed to be favorable, although not compelling, and they were given the go ahead to make the attempt, with Paul Weitz taking the lead during the EVA. Unfortunately, things would not prove so simple. While Weitz was able to use the "shepard's crook" tool to grab the stuck panel, his efforts to simply pull it free were futile, instead causing noticeable motion of both the Apollo spacecraft and the station itself. Faced with this defeat, ground planners decided to instead focus on deployment of the parasol developed at Johnson Space Center. While the power supply issues caused by the jammed panel were serious, the extremely high interior temperatures caused by the loss of the sunshade/micrometeroid shield were far more pressing. Happily, the high temperatures had not caused toxic materials in the interior to degass, and the parasol was quickly and successfully deployed from the sun-side scientific airlock. Unfortunately, this would prevent some of the planned scientific agenda from taking place, as the airlock remained blocked for the remainder of Skylab's lifespan.
With the failure of the first attempt to unjam the solar panel and the success of parasol deployment, the Skylab 2 crew settled in to begin working on their scientific agenda while the ground crew worked on a different procedure to fix the station's power supply problems during a space walk near the end of the flight. This agenda consisted of three major areas: solar physics, earth observation, and biomedical studies, with observations of Comet Kohoutek (then close to perihelion) also included when possible. Each proved highly successful, with the biomedical research providing particularly important results that validated NASA's focus on further space station development. Contrary to the fears of some before the flight, astronauts proved entirely able to function in space and space sickness turned out to be much less debilitating on long missions than had previously been suspected. Indeed, being in space appeared to provide some protection against motion sickness, at least once an initial acclimatization period was completed.
Finally, after several weeks on the station, the ground crew had developed a plan to unjam the solar panel and restore full functionality to the station. The first step would be building a jury-rigged EVA path from the edge of the main Skylab module to the solar panel root. As it was never intended that astronauts would be spacewalking down the habitat, and the outer skin was supposed to be protected behind a pop-out solar/micrometeroid shield, no handholds, footholds, or other assistance devices had been provided leading to the spot, and from Gemini experience NASA knew that it would be nearly impossible for astronauts to reach the panel without something to hold on to. Using this rail, one of the spacewalkers would move to the panel and place a cutting tool on the strap which had prevented the panel from opening. Then, using the improvised EVA rail as a lever, he would force the cutting tool's jaws closed and cut the strap. Unfortunately, this would not quite be the end, as the panel mechanism had probably jammed due to space exposure since launch. Therefore, the rail would see one final use to help force the mechanism open, hopefully curing Skylab's power supply woes once and for all. After an intensive review of the plan with the ground and a good night's sleep, Pete Conrad and Joe Kerwin stepped out of the airlock nearly halfway through the mission to begin their spacewalk. Three and a half hours later, they reentered the airlock having accomplished the first inflight repair of a spacecraft in history (and what was at that point the longest spacewalk in history). The solar panel had been successfully deployed, and juice was already flowing into the station's batteries.
After the drama of Skylab's first few weeks, the remainder of the mission seemed to flash by as if a dream. Another spacewalk took place nearly two weeks after the main one, this time to retrieve and change out film in the Apollo Telescope Mount, but it was no longer a life-and-death matter. The success of the repair had boosted NASA's credibility to new heights back on Earth. Critics who had questioned the value of astronauts and the usefulness of space stations as opposed to robotic platforms were silenced by the salvaging of a mission that would otherwise have caused the write off of hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars of equipment and training. Finally, after 28 days in space, the first Skylab crew returned to Earth, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean near the recovery ship USS New Orleans.
Last edited: