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
Space manufacturing Facility was carried into orbit by the Space Shuttle. This demonstration platform used the vacuum created in the orbital wake to manufacture thin films of gallium arsenide and aluminum gallium arsenide. On May 31, 2005, the recoverable, unmanned Foton-M2 laboratory was launched into orbit. Among the experiments were crystal growth and the behavior of molten-metal in weightlessness. The completion of the International Space Station has provided expanded and improved facilities for performing industrial research. These have and will continue to lead to improvements in our knowledge of materials sciences, new manufacturing techniques on Earth, and potentially some important discoveries in