Forty-five years ago today — December 15, 1964 — the San Marco-1 satellite launched from Wallops Island, VA, on a Scout rocket. This was the first in a series of Italian atmospheric science spacecraft, and the only one to be launched from the U.S.
(San Marco satellite in checkout at Wallops Island, VA. NASA image from Wikimedia Commons.)
Succeeding missions were launched starting in 1967 from the San Marco platform, a converted oil platform anchored off the coast of Kenya. I find that fascinating, as the San Marco platform was a precursor to the Sea Launch operations I observed over 30 years later.
And 25 years ago today, in 1984, the Soviet Union launched its Vega-1 mission atop a Proton-K rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. (I wonder if it was processed in the same building in which I later saw the Nimiq-2 satellite get mated to a Proton launch vehicle.) Vega-1 — also known as Venera-Halley 1 — was a very successful mission that deposited a lander as well as a set of balloon-borne experiments on Venus, and then continued to a 1986 flyby of Halley’s comet.
by 
