Skylab - Mission Designations

Mission Designations

The numerical identification of the manned Skylab missions was the cause of some confusion. Originally, the unmanned launch of Skylab and the three manned missions to the station were numbered SL-1 through SL-4. During the preparations for the manned missions, some documentation was created with a different scheme -- SLM-1 through SLM-3—for those missions only. William Pogue credits Pete Conrad with asking the Skylab program director which scheme should be used for the mission patches, and the astronauts were told to use 1-2-3, not 2-3-4. By the time NASA administrators tried to reverse this decision, it was too late, as all the in-flight clothing had already been manufactured and shipped with the 1-2-3 mission patches.

Mission Emblem Commander Pilot Science Pilot Launch date Landing date Duration (days)
Skylab 1 SL-1 unmanned launch of space station 1973-05-14
17:30:00 UTC
1979-07-11
16:37:00 UTC
2248.96
Skylab 2 SL-2 (SLM-1) Pete Conrad Paul Weitz Joseph Kerwin 1973-05-25
13:00:00 UTC
1973-06-22
13:49:48 UTC
28.03
Skylab 3 SL-3 (SLM-2) Alan Bean Jack Lousma Owen Garriott 1973-07-28
11:10:50 UTC
1973-09-25
22:19:51 UTC
59.46
Skylab 4 SL-4 (SLM-3) Gerald Carr William Pogue Edward Gibson 1973-11-16
14:01:23 UTC
1974-02-08
15:16:53 UTC
84.04

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