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Skylab 5
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1974 April. (Cancelled flight). Crew: Brand, Lind, Lenoir. Program: Skylab. After completion of the three programmed Skylab flights, NASA considered using the remaining backup Saturn IB and Apollo CSM to fly a fourth manned mission to Skylab. It would have been a short 20 day mission - the CSM systems would not have been powered down. Main objective would be to conduct some new scientific experiments and boost Skylab into a higher orbit for later use by the shuttle. The marginal cost of such a mission would have been incredibly low; but NASA was confident that Skylab would stay in orbit until shuttle flights began in 1978 - 1979. But the shuttle was delayed, and faster atmospheric decay than expected resulted in Skylab crashing to earth before the first shuttle mission was flown. Skylab 5 Chronology - - 1974 April - Skylab 5 (cancelled) Crew: Brand, Lind, Lenoir. Spacecraft: Apollo CSM.
After completion of the three programmed Skylab flights, NASA considered using the remaining backup Saturn IB and Apollo CSM to fly a fourth manned mission to Skylab. It would have been a short 20 day mission to conduct some new scientific experiments and boost Skylab into a higher orbit for later use by the shuttle. But NASA was confident that Skylab would stay in orbit until shuttle flights began in 1978 - 1979. But the shuttle was delayed, and Skylab crashed to earth before the first shuttle mission was flown.
Bibliography and Further Reading - Oberg, James, and Cassutt, MIchael, Spaceflight, "Phantom Space Crews", Vol 26, June 1984, p. 274.
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