Skylab's Spectacular Death

While scientists held their breath, the satellite crashed

Western Australia's Nullarbor (meaning no trees) Plain is an arid, limestone plateau that lies east of the old gold-rush towns of Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie, southeast of Comet Vale and northeast of Grass Patch. It is a barren, almost unpopulated land of sand and saltbush. Out of the blackness of the southwestern sky one night last week, the fringe of this isolated region was visited by a fiery symbol of the Western world's most advanced technology: the final, fatal fall of Skylab.

Right in its path was Rancher John Seller, who was asleep in his house at Noondoonia Station, a 50-sq.-mi. sheep spread 480 miles east of Perth, Western Australia's capital city. Just 35 minutes after midnight, he and his wife, Elizabeth, were shaken awake by a loud noise. They ran outside. Said Seiler: "It was an incredible sight--hundreds of shining lights dropping all around the homestead. They were white, but as they began dropping, the pieces turned dull red. All the time there was a tremendous sonic boom."

Seiler could hear pieces of the disintegrating satellite swish overhead. Said he:

"It was like a windmilling sound, quite frightening. It terrified the cattle and horses, which circled their paddocks in fear. The dogs barked and went wild when the sonic booms followed. Then there were thumps--they must have been the biggest pieces crashing down. Finally, the house shook three times. Afterward, there was a burning smell."

The fireworks were almost as spectacular over Perth. At the airport, Captain Ken Fox and First Officer Lyndsay Walker were walking toward the jet they were to fly out as soon as Skylab was safely down. The sight overwhelmed them with imagery. Said Walker: "It was like Tinker Bell waving a magic wand. Like a fire sprinkler with sparks whirling everywhere." Said Fox: "It was as though someone had painted the heavens with a wide brush. There were hundreds of flashes in the sky."

Half a world away, the American space scientists who had sent Skylab aloft six years ago were calling themselves lucky, too. Although the 77.5-ton craft presumably broke into some 500 pieces, including two weighing about two tons each, there were no reports of anyone's being hurt. That was mainly because Skylab, pretty much on its own, had re-entered the earth's atmosphere while on an orbit that carried the craft over Canada, Maine, and the Atlantic and Indian oceans, posing minimal danger to the world's most populated areas. Despite months of meticulous planning for Skylab's final moments, officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration saw no reason to try to push Skylab into some orbit other than the one that was dictated by the laws of physics.

There was, nevertheless, plenty of suspense as Skylab slipped ever closer to its doom. The craft was monitored by the worldwide network of NASA and NORAD's space-tracking stations. From NORAD'S underground headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo., calculations about the craft's flight were transmitted to the Skylab Control Center at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center near Houston. There Charles Harlan, the Skylab flight director, estimated the vehicle's probable reentry point, and the possible dangers. He, in turn, was responsible for advising the Skylab Coordination Center at NASA headquarters in Washington whether anything should be done to change Skylab's trajectory. The final decision was up to NASA Administrator Robert A. Frosch, aided by his Skylab task force director, Richard G. Smith, who worked in a guarded, sixth-floor NASA office.

At the Houston center, Skylab's final orbit (No. 34,981) looked ideal to Harlan, since it was over the ocean and sparsely populated areas. But one big problem soon emerged: the experts' best guesses as to where the satellite was first likely to re-enter the atmosphere were slightly wrong. Instead of over the middle Atlantic, as expected, Skylab could begin breaking up over Canada, endangering the Montreal area and parts of Maine. Harlan got permission from Washington to cause Skylab to tumble in space, which would delay its impact with earth by about 30 minutes.

The crucial command could be given only during the three minutes that Skylab was within radio range of NASA's tracking station in Santiago, Chile. The coded words were phoned by Houston Flight Controller Cindy Major, 27, to the Santiago center. "Load mark," she said, "one, zero, six, two." The order caused Skylab's adjusting jets to fire briefly, propelling the craft into the wobbling motion. Said Harlan: "We shot our last wad."

But the space station proved more durable than expected. To the astonishment rf the controllers, the craft still was sending out signals when it came within range )f the NASA station on Ascension Island in the Atlantic. Said Harlan: "I got to thinking that we couldn't kill the thing " Soon, however, the signs of deterioration were clear. At a height of 69 miles over the ocean, some of Skylab's batteries registered a temperature of 100DEG F far above the normal 60DEG F. Then the radio signals faded, and finally stopped. Breakup had begun, and the projected "footprint" of Skylab's debris seemed to be safely in the Indian Ocean. Houston's perspiring controllers relaxed. The monitoring team gave Johnson Space Center Director Christopher Kraft a Skylab SPLAT DOWN (instead of splashdown) T shirt For a time, Skylab still refused to die After losing its solar panels, the vehicle skipped as it hit the dense atmosphere like a flat rock bouncing off the surface of a lake. Moving through a gap in the U.S. tracking network, Skylab slid on in radio silence, with no one aware of precisely where it was. NASA'S final maneuver, though based on the best information available to its controllers, had actually pushed the dying craft closer to Australia than intended. Not until Skylab reached the skies about six miles above Kalgoorlie, with its speed slowed to 270 m.p.h., did its flaming parts begin to plunge almost vertically toward the earth.

From Camp David, President Carter flashed a quick message via satellite to Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. Said the President: "I was concerned to learn that fragments of Skylab may have landed in Australia." Carter instructed the Department of State to offer assistance. None, however, was needed.

No injuries--even to a stray kangaroo --were reported.

Some Australians berated the U S for what they considered a selfish attempt to protect Maine (pop. 1,085,000) while imperiling Perth (pop. 820,100). At the same time, however, souvenir hunters rushed into the outback by Jeep, Land Rover and even chartered aircraft. Some were quick to claim they had found debris from the fallen craft, including a large cylindrical object and several small fragments. Old-timers were reminded of the giddy days when Irishman Paddy Hannan found gold nuggets near Kalgoorlie just before the turn of the century, touching off a similar treasure hunt.

In one sense, Skylab's harmless return to earth in Western Australia seemed fitting. When Astronaut John Glenn in 1962 became the first American to orbit the globe, the city of Perth had spectacularly sent him its best wishes by turning on most of its lights as he passed overhead.

Last week, quite unintentionally, NASA returned the compliment.

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