Oops, there it isn’t
The inaugural Skylab crew captured this image of the outpost on arrival, showing the missing micrometeoroid shield and partially deployed solar array. “The Sun’s harsh rays had already begun to discolor and blister the exposed skin of the workshop,” and the newly arrived crew “could clearly see the thin strip of aluminum holding one array in a slightly open position and a tangle of severed cables where the second array had torn away,” Uri wrote.
The crew would later fit the makeshift parasol solar shade in place of the mission shield and fix the solar array during a series of spacewalks. Prior to the fix, the station had to be powered by four smaller ATM arrays, which weren’t enough to power Skylab’s systems and experiments.
