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Skylab 2: First Repair Spacewalk

Skylab, America’s first space station, launched on May 14, 1973, and immediately ran into serious trouble.  NASA delayed the launch of the first crew, Commander Charles “Pete” Conrad, Pilot Paul J. Weitz, and Science Pilot Joseph P. Kerwin, by 10 days to allow managers and engineers to develop plans to save the station due to the loss of the micrometeoroid shield torn away during launch and the failure of the solar arrays to deploy.  Repair procedures were tested on the ground and tools were loaded into the Command Module shortly before the crew’s launch.  After a successful launch on May 25 and rendezvous with Skylab they performed an fly-around inspection of the station, observing that indeed the micrometeoroid shield was missing as was one of the solar arrays while the other was only partly deployed, held down by debris from the torn shield.  The crew attempted to free the jammed array that day but were not successful.  After entering the station the next day, the crew deployed a parasol that brought internal temperatures down to comfortable levels and they began their science experiments.  But the lack of power from the missing and jammed solar arrays curtailed their activities.

SL2-4-265 (25 May 1973) — Skylab 2, approach to Skylab at long range, fly-around inspection. Orbital Workshop with area of missing micrometeoroid shield visible and partially deployed solar array visible.
NASA
This image, taken during a fly-around inspection by the Skylab-2 crew, shows the damaged meteoroid shield being held by a thin aluminum strap entangled with green-hued remnants of the lost heat shield. The Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) developed, tested, rehearsed, and approved three repair options. These options included a parasol sunshade and a twin-pole sunshade to restore the temperature inside the workshop, and a set of metal cutting tools to free the jammed solar panel.
NASA

Attention turned to freeing the jammed solar array.  In the Neutral Buoyancy Simulator at Marshall Space Flight Center, Skylab 2 backup commander Russell Schweickart and Skylab 4 crewmember Edward Gibson practiced techniques that could be used during a spacewalk and relayed that information to the onboard crew.  On June 7, 1973, on their 14th day in space, Conrad and Kerwin floated out of Skylab’s Airlock Module. They set up a 25-foot pole with cable cutter tool at the end that closed partway over the aluminum strap from the micrometeoroid shield that was holding down the solar array.  Conrad used the pole as a handhold to translate down the solar wing and attached a rope to its structure.  Kerwin closed the jaws on the cutter tool the rest of the way, slicing through the metal strap.  The solar wing partially opened, but its hinge had frozen in the cold of space preventing it from fully opening.  Conrad and Kerwin then both pulled on the rope to overcome the frozen hinge and the wing sprung fully open, bouncing the astronauts away—luckily their space suit tethers kept them from floating off into space.  Once the wing opened, the individual solar panels deployed and shortly Mission Control notified the crew that they were generating power!  Conrad and Kerwin climbed back inside Skylab after 3 hours and 25 minutes, the longest spacewalk in Earth orbit to date.  The success of this repair EVA enabled NASA to plan with confidence the rest of the Skylab program that in terms of the amount and quality of research results obtained far exceeded preflight expectations. 

This photograph was taken during testing of an emergency procedure to free jammed solar array panels on the Skylab workshop. A metal strap became tangled over one of the folded solar array panels when Skylab lost its micrometeoroid shield during the launch. This photograph shows astronauts Schweickart and Gibson in the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Neutral Buoyancy Simulator (NBS) using various cutting tools and methods developed by the MSFC to free the jammed solar wing. Extensive testing and many hours of practice in simulators such as the NBS tank helped prepare the Skylab crewmen for extravehicular performance in the weightless environment. This huge water tank simulated the weightless environment that the astronauts would encounter in space.
NASA
Skylab with the parasol in place and missing one of it's solar arrays.
The freed solar array is visible in this photo taken by the departing Skylab 2 crew who deployed it.
NASA

The last installment in this mini-series will bring the crewmembers home and summarize their accomplishments.

Read Skylab 2 back up Commander Rusty Schweickart’s oral history.

Read Skylab 2 Astronauts Paul Weitz’s and Joe Kerwin’s oral histories.