On This Date…March 1

#OTD in 1989…Columbia launched with a classified communications satellite for the Defense Department

#OTD in 1988…Discovery returned Americans to space after the Challenger accident

The first crew to inhabit Skylab — Conrad, Weitz and Kerwin — launched today in 1973 for a 28-day mission that successfully made critical repairs, brought the station into operation and conducted solar astronomy, Earth resources and medical experiments.