Skylab

American  

[skahy-lab] / ˈskaɪˌlæb /

noun

1. a U.S. earth-orbiting space station that was periodically staffed by three separate crews of astronauts and remained in orbit 1973–79.

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Skylab British  

/ ˈskaɪˌlæb /

noun

1. a US space station launched in May 1973 into an orbit inclined at 50° to the equatorial plane at a mean altitude of 430 kilometres (270 miles), the astronauts working there under conditions of zero gravity. It disintegrated, unmanned, in 1979, with some parts landing in the outback of Australia

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Etymology

Origin of Skylab

C20: from _sky + _lab ( _oratory )

Example Sentences

The orbit of the American space station Skylab is deteriorating; history tells us that parts of it came down in … Western Australia, in 1979.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 2, 2024

After Apollo 7, Mr. Cunningham served as chief of NASA’s Skylab program, which produced the first American space station.

From Washington Post • Jan. 5, 2023

That is barely more than the American Skylab that launched in 1973, and it is less than the Mir space station that the Soviet Union began assembling in space in 1986.

From New York Times • Dec. 12, 2022

Amazingly, he says, in the last 48 years only one other reporter has been in touch with the Skylab 4 crew apart from the BBC, to ask them for their account of what happened.

From BBC • Mar. 19, 2021

Of course, Skylab was a huge spacecraft and it was easy to exercise by riding a bicycle bolted to the floor, or by running around and around the walls.

From "Flying to the Moon: An Astronaut's Story" by Michael Collins