Space Station of 1975
A NASA breifing on orbital payload planning from 1969 suggests that Skylab (then known as an “orbital workshop”) would be followed by a space station to be launched by Saturn V’s in 1975. Sadly, Saturn V production had been ordered stopped in 1968. No other data on the station presented.
November 19th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Based on the size of the docking ports, it doesn’t look overwhelmingly large, does it?
Sure has enough docking ports though; it looks like there are 18 total.
It would be interesting to know what the small things docked to it were to be orbited on… Saturn 1B’s? Titan III’s?
November 19th, 2009 at 11:27 am
I was just looking at that again, and the solar arrays are interesting - they are attached to arms that pivot around 180 degrees to allow them to be stowed at the ends of the station during launch.
It looks like this is to be assembled from two modules that are individually launched, each with its solar arrays stowed atop it under a launch fairing.
Given the lifting capabilities of the Saturn V, if that’s the case, then these are pretty heavy modules, and chock full of things compared to Skylab.
The RCS quads are then explained (you would expect gyros rather than RCS for on-orbit orientation) as they allow the two modules to be docked to each other after reaching orbit.