The Apollo and Skylab Programs each suffered major setbacks and losses. These events, such as the Apollo 1 fire, the Apollo 13 oxygen tank explosion, and the Skylab 1 micrometeoroid shield loss, lesser-known crises were averted during the 21 missions that utilized the Apollo spacecraft. During Apollo 10 and Skylab 4, crews suffered from human factors related incidents.
May 14, 1973, Skylab soared into Low-Earth Orbit from Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on a modified Saturn V (S-V) rocket. Whereas the launch of Skylab 1 was unmanned, Skylab 2, planned for launch the following day on May 15, would deliver a three-man crew to the station. However, once Skylab was in orbit and controllers initiated start-up procedures, it became apparent that the vehicle suffered damage during launch. Skylab 2 was postponed for 10 days. During those dire days, Skylab engineers scrambled to understand what went wrong and what they would do to fix it.
Ten years after the inflight breakup of Space Shuttle Columbia Space Transportation System Mission (STS-107), the memory of those astronauts — and of Apollo 204 in 1967 and Challenger in 1986 — who died in the line of service continues to serve as a reminder to the agency.
Wayne Hale’s Ten Rules for Engineering for Space is the focus of Remembrance Day 2014. As former NASA Flight Director and Space Shuttle Program Manager, Hale has compiled a list of lessons learned based on the Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia disasters.
January 27, 2017 marked the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 1 fire. The NASA Safety Center hosted a session outlining the changes instituted as a result of the disaster and NASA’s safety cultural has greatly improved as a result of the lessons learned from the tragedy.
While NASA needed to study Columbia to learn exactly what happened to the shuttle and return to flight, the agency also knew that the artifacts had a lot to teach others. NASA started the loan program, so others could study her: learning her lessons and advancing science for future generations. This is Columbia’s continued mission.
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