Delores Zeroles (front) and Ceal Webb of ILC Industries, Dover, N.J., set up shop at NASA’s George C. Marshall Space Flight Center to stitch together a sun-shield for the Skylab Orbital Workshop, the first United States Experimental space station in orbit, which lost its thermal protection shield during the launch on May 14, 1973. Without the heat shield, the temperature inside the Orbital Workshop became dangerously high, rendering the workshop uninhabitable and threatening the interior insulation and adhesive to deteriorate. Marshall engineers and scientists worked tirelessly around the clock to develop an emergency repair procedure. The Skylab crew and the repair kits were launched just 11 days after the incident. The crew successfully deployed the twin-pole sail parasol sun-shade during their EVA (Extravehicular Activity) the next day.
Image credit: NASA/MSFC