Word: apollo
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...renewed crisis occurred after the astronauts thought they had their electrical problems well in hand. Power available from the four working windmill-shaped solar wings atop Skylab's telescope mount, and from fuel cells in the adjoining Apollo command module, was only about half what scientists had considered necessary for the mission. But by prudent rationing (turning off unnecessary lights, curtailing some experiments), the astronauts were able to perform most of their scheduled tasks. When they flipped Skylab over to begin earth-surveying photography with six high-resolution cameras, the functioning solar panels were turned away from...
...temperatures to erect an umbrella-like sunshade over the area where Skylab had lost its micrometeoroid and thermal shielding. The makeshift solution worked. Within a few days, temperatures in the workshop dropped to the low 80s and the astronauts, who had been spending most of their time aboard the Apollo command module, could take up residence in Skylab...
Without the electrical power from the inoperative panel, Skylab would have to depend on its windmill solar panels and on Apollo's fuel cells, which would be depleted in about three weeks. That meant that many of Skylab's planned experiments would have to be curtailed...
...worst was still to come. When the disappointed astronauts moved Apollo back to the nose of Skylab to dock for a rest period, another glitch developed: Apollo's docking mechanism, which had worked the first time, suddenly balked. Several times Conrad bumped Apollo's nose into Skylab's docking adapter; each time, Apollo's docking mechanism failed to engage...
...their second option, the astronauts also carried into space a canopy rigged to a makeshift A-frame. But its deployment would require a more difficult space walk from the exit in Skylab's airlock module. As a third option, the Apollo command module carried the "Spinnaker Shade," which had been the original first choice of space officials. They had second thoughts about the sail-like canopy, because they feared that the light jet plumes from the command module's thrusters might fog the still functioning solar wings on the telescope mount. As he hung out of the open...