Skylab 2 was a mission beset with issues from the beginning. The Skylab station suffered serious launch damage when one of its solar panels and its heat/debris shield ripped off during the climb to orbit. As a result, Skylab 2 (which was to carry the first crew to the station) was delayed two weeks while engineers quickly designed fixes and made emergency repair equipment. After reaching Skylab, the crew performed a stand-up spacewalk and used a 10-foot pole to try to free the remaining stuck solar panel. This failed, and the crew proceeded to dock, a process that took nine attempts to accomplish. Once in the station the crew had to perform a second spacewalk to free the stuck solar panel and ensure good power for the two Skylab crew missions to follow. Over their 28-day mission (a world record at the time), the Skylab 2 crew performed 392 hours of experiments and collected more than 29,000 images of the Sun from the Apollo Telescope Mount. Upon landing, they became the first space station crew to safely return to Earth after the first-ever station crew from the Soviet Union were killed during the Soyuz 11 mission.