Skylab Skylab Skylab was a United States space station launched and operated by NASA, and occupied for about 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974 – the only space station the U.S. has operated exclusively. In 1979 it fell back to Earth amid huge worldwide media attention. Skylab included a workshop, a solar observatory, and other systems necessary for crew survival and scientific experiments. It was launched unmanned by a modified Saturn V rocket, with a weight of . Lifting Skylab into low earth orbit was the final mission and launch of a Saturn V rocket (famous for carrying the
International Space Station Space Shuttle to dock to the space station. At that time, the Russian station "Mir" was still inhabited. The ISS remained unmanned for two years, while "Mir" was de-orbited. On 12 July 2000, "Zvezda" was launched into orbit. Preprogrammed commands on board deployed its solar arrays and communications antenna. It then became the passive target for a rendezvous with "Zarya" and "Unity": it maintained a station-keeping orbit while the "Zarya"-"Unity" vehicle performed the rendezvous and docking via ground control and the Russian automated rendezvous and docking system. "Zarya" computer transferred control of the station to "Zvezda" computer soon after docking.