Skylab Technical Crew Debriefing 1973

This NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center release collects excerpts from the Skylab 1/2, 1/3 and 1/4 technical crew debriefings, dated June 30, 1973, October 4, 1973 and February 22, 1974. The Skylab 2 crew describe light flashes they saw with their eyes closed and link some of them to cosmic particles. The Skylab 3 crew describe a bright reddish, rotating object that they tracked for about 10 minutes in an orbit close to their own and ask to have it identified. The Skylab 4 crew report lights outside that they took to be Skylab debris or other satellites.

From the source: Release of 2026-05-08 Launched on May 14, 1973, Skylab was the United States’ first laboratory in space. From 1973 to 1974, the station was visited by three crews. This document contains excerpts from all three crews to visit the station. In the first excerpt taken from Skylab 1/2 [first crew] Technical Debriefing from June 30, 1973, highlights crew observations of light flashes. The second excerpt taken from Skylab 1/3 Technical Crew Debriefing from October 4, 1973, highlights two observations—a satellite in similar orbit and another object with a “reddish hue to it.” The final excerpt taken from the Skylab 1/4 Technical Crew Debriefing from February 22, 1974, highlights an observation of flashing lights outside Skylab. • Skylab 2 crew observation: o Page 23-20. [Science Pilot for Skylab 2, Joesph Kerwin] “We saw light flashes. I think all of us saw them. I saw them most often when I was in the sack at night with my eyes closed but awake naturally. They tended to wax and wane in frequency.” • Skylab 3 crew observations: o Page 7-4. [Science Pilot for Skylab 3, Owen Garriott] “We saw that satellite about a week before splashdown. That was one of the most unusual things that we saw and I guess Jack [Lousma] noticed it looking out the window. This bright reddish object was out there and we tracked it for about 5 or 10 minutes. It was obviously a satellite in a very similar orbit to our own.” o Page 20-1. [Science Pilot for Skylab 3, Owen Garriott] “Jack [Lousma] first noticed this rather large red star out the wardroom window. Upon close examination, it was much brighter than Jupiter or any of the other planets. It had a reddish hue to it, even though it was well above the horizon.” • Skylab 4 crew observation o Page 7-8. [Commander for Skylab 4, Gerald P. Carr] “One other area of unusual events that we reported on the dump tapes was that on occasion we saw some lights flashing outside with very a definite motion relative to ours. We presumed that they were other pieces of Skylab, or possibly other satellites.”

GARRIOTT a reddish hue to it, even though it was well above the
(CONT'D)
horizon. The light from the Sun was not passing close to
the Earth's limb at the time. We observed it for about
10 minutes prior to sunset. It was slowly rotating because
it had a variation in brightness with a 10-second period.
As I was saying, we observed it for about 10 minutes, until
we went into darkness, and it also followed us into darkness
about 5-seconds later. From the 5- to 10-second delay in
it's disappearance we surmised that it was not more than 30
to 50 nautical miles from our location. From it's original
position in the wardroom window, it did not move more than
10 or 20 degrees over the 10 minutes or so that we watched it.
It's orbit was very close to that of our own. We never saw
it on any - earlier or succeeding orbits and we'd be quite
interested in having its identification established. It's
all debriefed in terms of time on channel A, so the percise
timing and location can be picked up from there.
LOUSMA Okay, other visual sightings was the one out the wardroom
window. That sunrise or sunset which finally led us to the
RCS leak in the command module. It disappeared like
thousands and thousands of stars out there; all of them
different sizes and drifting along the X-axis. The one that
we already mentioned. The one right after insertion where
we saw the leak in the same manner of the RCS streaming towards
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