Skylab 3 was the second crewed mission to America’s space station and a science marathon that doubled the previous duration record. Commander Alan Bean, Science Pilot Owen Garriott, and Pilot Jack Lousma launched on July 28, 1973, atop a Saturn IB from KSC Launch Complex 39B for a planned 59-day stay aboard Skylab.

The mission got off to a rocky start. All three astronauts experienced severe motion sickness during their first days in the large open volume of the orbital workshop — a reminder that long-duration spaceflight adaptation was still poorly understood. Despite the initial discomfort, the crew quickly found their rhythm and went on to become one of the most productive in Skylab’s history.

A major task was deploying a new twin-pole sun shield to replace the deteriorating parasol installed by the Skylab 2 crew. During a 6.5-hour EVA, Garriott and Lousma erected the twin-pole structure over the original parasol, providing improved thermal protection for the remainder of Skylab’s operational life. The crew conducted three EVAs totaling 13 hours and 43 minutes.

The science output was extraordinary. The crew logged 1,084 hours of experiments — nearly triple the Skylab 2 total. They conducted extensive solar astronomy with the Apollo Telescope Mount, capturing unprecedented observations of solar flares, prominences, and coronal holes. Owen Garriott made the first amateur radio contact from space, talking to hams around the world using a small handheld radio. One of the mission’s most famous experiments involved two spiders named Arabella and Anita, part of a student experiment to see if spiders could spin webs in zero gravity. After some initial confusion, both spiders adapted and produced recognizable webs — demonstrating biological adaptation to weightlessness.

Bean, a veteran of Apollo 12 who had walked on the Moon, brought artistic sensibility to the mission — he later became a full-time artist painting scenes from his space experiences. The crew splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on September 25, 1973, and was recovered by the USS New Orleans, having proven that humans could live and work productively in space for two months.