The U.S. space station Skylab reentered Earth's atmosphere and broke apart over the Indian Ocean and Western Australia.

On 14 May 1973, NASA launched Skylab, the United States' first space station, aboard a Saturn V rocket from Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

It was built as an orbital laboratory for scientific research.

Its mission was to study long-duration human spaceflight, the Sun, Earth, and microgravity.

Three crewed NASA missions visited Skylab between 1973 and 1974.

On 11 July 1979, the 77-ton Skylab reentered Earth's atmosphere and broke apart.

Because unexpectedly high solar activity accelerated its orbital decay, delays in the Space Shuttle program prevented NASA from boosting it into a higher orbit.