Skylab flight plan development

For the Skylab Program, extensive premission flight planning was accomplished in the 3-yr period preceding lift-off. After the activation phase for each mission, however, all flight planning for real-time operations was conducted by ground support personnel on a daily basis, primarily for two reasons: (1) the long duration of the missions precluded the continued use of a premission plan, and (2) the variation in the earth resources experiment package (EREP) requirements and opportunities (primarily due to weather), precluded any premission planning for these experiments. An onboard teleprinter was used each day to transmit the flight plan and necessary supporting data to the crew. The teleprinter enabled the routine transmission of large amounts of data to the crew and therefore was primarily responsible for the daily planning capability in the Skylab Program.