Skylab was the United States’ first space station, launched in 1973 aboard a modified Saturn V rocket. Roughly the size of a small house, it weighed 77 metric tons and orbited Earth for six years.
Skylab hosted three astronaut crews between 1973 and 1974, who lived and worked in space for record-setting durations of up to 84 days. Inside, astronauts studied solar activity, Earth’s weather, and the effects of long-term weightlessness on the human body.
Though it reentered Earth’s atmosphere in 1979, Skylab proved humans could live and work in orbit—paving the way for today’s International Space Station.
This Stemcell-exclusive features an official NASA cutaway schematic diagram of SkyLab with over 150 individual components identified.
