The mission began on July 28, 1973, with the launch of NASA astronauts Alan Bean, Owen Garriott, and Jack Lousma in the Apollo command and service module on the Saturn IB rocket, and lasted 59 days, 11 hours and 9 minutes.

[2][5] While approaching Skylab a propellant leak developed in one of the Apollo Service Module's reaction control system thruster quads.

It was eventually determined that the CSM could be safely maneuvered using only two working thruster quads, and the rescue mission was never launched.

Other additional tests included arterial blood flow measurements by an occlusive cuff placed around the leg, facial photographs taken before flight and during flight to study the "puffy face syndrome", venous compliance, hemoglobin, urine specific gravity, and urine mass measurements.

The two animal experiments involved the chronobiology of little pocket mice and circadian rhythm in vinegar gnats.

[9] High school students from across the United States participated in the Skylab missions as the primary investigators of experiments that studied astronomy, physics, and fundamental biology.

The student experiments performed on Skylab 3 included the study of libration clouds, X-rays from Jupiter, in-vitro immunology, spider web formation, cytoplasmic streaming, mass measurement, and neutron analysis.

S150 had a large soft x-ray detector, and was mounted atop the Saturn S-IVB upper stage.

[13] After the launch the spiders were released by astronaut Owen Garriott into a box that resembled a window frame.

[15] Later experiments indicated that having access to a light source could orient the spiders and enable them to build their normal asymmetric webs when gravity was not a factor.

[16][17] The Skylab 3 mission returned to Earth with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean at 22:20 UTC on September 25, 1973.

[18] The crew and command module were recovered by the USS New Orleans, about 360 km (225 mi) off the Californian coast, southwest of San Diego.

[20] The circular crew patch was Leonardo da Vinci's c. 1490 Vitruvian Man, representing the mission's medical experiments and retouched to remove the genitalia.

[22] The command module was moved to the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland, Ohio, in June 2010.

[25] Different for earlier Apollo modules, Skylab ones had white paint on the sunward side to help with spacecraft thermal management.