To start this space history item off in the usual fashion: 20 years ago today — July 24, 1992 — a Delta II launch vehicle carried the Geotail satellite to orbit from Cape Canaveral.
Geotail was built by Japan’s Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science as one of the International Solar Terrestrial Physics (ISTP) missions to study the interactions between the Earth and the Sun. Geotail primarily studied the magnetotail, a region formed by the solar wind interacting with the Earth’s magnetic field.
___
Unfortunately, we close this post by saying goodbye to a lady who made space history: physicist and astronaut Dr. Sally Ride, the first U.S. woman in space. Dr. Ride died yesterday of pancreatic cancer. Here’s a very nice profile from Spaceflight Now.
(Sally Ride. NASA image.)
Farewell, Sally Ride.
by 
