Space research days in the space station, but this achievement was quickly overshadowed since the crew died on reentry to Earth. Salyut 1 was intentionally deorbited six months into orbit since it prematurely ran out of fuel. Skylab was the first American space station. It was 4 times larger than Salut 1. Skylab was launched in May 19, 1973. It rotated through three crews of three during its operational time. Skylab’s experiments confirmed coronal holes and were able to photograph eight solar flares. From 1986 to 2001, Russian space station Mir served as a permanent microgravity research laboratory in which crews conducted
Lissajous orbit , and also the Genesis mission collecting solar particles at . On 14 May 2009, the European Space Agency (ESA) launched into space the Herschel and Planck observatories, both of which use Lissajous orbits at Sun–Earth . ESA's current Gaia mission also uses a Lissajous orbit at Sun–Earth . In 2011, NASA transferred two of its THEMIS spacecraft from Earth orbit to Lunar orbit by way of Earth-Moon and Lissajous orbits. China's lunar orbiter Chang'e 2 left lunar orbit on June 8, 2011 and was placed in a Lissajous orbit at Earth-Sun until mid-2012 prior to leaving Earth orbit entirely