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 | |
Read more about this topic: Project Skylab
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“Man is eminently a storyteller. His search for a purpose, a cause, an ideal, a mission and the like is largely a search for a plot and a pattern in the development of his life story—a story that is basically without meaning or pattern.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)