Using it's Apollo Telescope mount, Skylab included eight solar experiments: two X-ray telescopes, an X-ray and extreme ultraviolet camera, an ultraviolet spectroheliometer, and extreme ultraviolet spectroheliograph, an ultraviolet spectroheliograph, a white light coronagraph, and two hydrogen-alpha telescopes. These experiments produced images of the Sun in x-rays with wavelengths and shows coronal holes and x-ray bright points of the Sun.

After the engineering tests were completed, Skylab was positioned into a stable attitude and systems were shut down. It was expected that Skylab would remain in orbit eight to ten years. However, in the fall of 1977, it was determined that Skylab was no longer in a stable attitude as a result of greater than predicted solar activity. On July 11, 1979, Skylab impacted the Earth surface. The debris dispersion area stretched from the Southeastern Indian Ocean across a sparsely populated section of Western Australia.