Author Archives: Gray Rinehart

First Successful Launch from SLC-6

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Fifteen years ago today — August 22, 1997 (local time) — the Lewis spacecraft launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base aboard a Lockheed Martin Launch Vehicle.


(An LMLV on the pad at Vandenberg. NASA image.)

Lewis was a small satellite built under NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology Initiative and part of the “Mission to Planet Earth.” a long-term research program designed to study the Earth’s land, oceans, air, and life as a total system.

This launch (on August 23, by GMT) was the first success for the LMLV, also known as an Athena rocket, and also the first successful launch from SLC-6 — Space Launch Complex Six — at Vandenberg.

Unfortunately, Lewis encountered attitude control problems: “telemetry received early August 26 indicated that the spacecraft was spinning at approximately two revolutions per minute. The spinning resulted in the spacecraft shutting down after its solar panels could not capture enough sunlight to properly recharge onboard batteries.” The satellite burned up in the atmosphere on September 28.

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Honorable Mention No. 8

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In today’s news, the results of the 2nd Quarter of the Writers of the Future contest are out, and I earned my eighth Honorable Mention.


(Image from the Writers of the Future web site.)

You can see all the results here. I recognized several names from the Codex Writers Group, and noted a sizable representation from here in North Carolina.

According to the contest rules, and as verified to me by the contest director, my forthcoming publications in Analog and Asimov’s will render me ineligible to enter the contest any more. But because the issue dates on the magazines are October and November, if I get a story submitted by September I’ll have one more shot. So guess what I’ve been working on the last week or so?

One last thing, while we’re here …

In space history, 40 years ago today — August 21, 1972 — Orbiting Astronomical Observatory 3 (OAO-3) was launched by an Atlas-Centaur from Cape Canaveral. It was the “second successful spacecraft to observe the celestial sphere from above the earth’s atmosphere,” and operated until February 1981.

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Missourians, You Have Another Choice: the Anti-Candidate!

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Actually, that goes for just about anyone, anywhere, but most especially for my friends in the Show-Me State who are as appalled as the rest of the thinking world at the idiocy spouted by Representative Akin.

Remember, the Anti-Candidate is available to be your write-in vote for any election, any time, anywhere.

You DO have a choice this November. As the Grail Knight said to Indiana Jones, “Choose wisely!”

I’m the Anti-Candidate, and I approved this message.

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Voyager 2's Epic Journey Begins

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Thirty-five years ago today — August 20, 1977 — the Voyager 2 space probe launched from Cape Canaveral aboard a Titan-IIIE-Centaur rocket.


(Voyager 2. NASA image.)

Voyager 2 was actually the first of the Voyager spacecraft to be launched. Voyager 1 would be launched a little over two weeks later.

The Voyager mission had at first been named “Mariner Jupiter/Saturn,” and was itself a less ambitious mission than originally planned:

Originally planned as a Grand Tour of the outer planets, including dual launches to Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto in 1976-77 and dual launches to Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune in 1979, budgetary constraints caused a dramatic rescoping of the project to two spacecraft, each of which would go to only Jupiter and Saturn.

The mission succeeded beyond all expectations, however:

Voyager 2’s launch date had preserved one part of the original Grand Tour design, i.e. the possibility of an extended mission to Uranus and Neptune. Despite the difficulties encountered, scientists and engineers had been able to make Voyager enormously successful. As a result, approval was granted to extend the mission, first to Uranus, then to Neptune and later to continue observations well past Neptune.

The extended mission required controllers to upload new software to take into account the communication lag times and the lower light levels in the outer solar system, but Voyager 2’s systems continued to work superbly. Our space history series has already noted Voyager 2’s successful visits to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

Now known as the Voyager Interstellar Mission, Voyager 2 is currently over 99.35 astronomical units from the sun … and still going.

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August 14: Sons of Liberty Day

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On August 14, 1765, the recently-formed “Sons of Liberty” made themselves known in a very public way.

Starting as “the Loyal Nine,” the group formed in Boston in the summer of 1765 in response to the Stamp Act. By August their agitation produced a violent response, when on the 14th a mob burned the Stamp Distributor in effigy and ransacked his home. Four years later, the Sons of Liberty gathered at Boston’s “Liberty Tree” to commemorate the event and one of the participants compiled a list of those present.

According to this USHistory.org page, however, “The success of these movements in undermining the Stamp Act cannot be attributed to violence alone. Their most effective work was performed in newsprint [as] accounts of the most dramatic escapades spread throughout the colonies.”

The most famous of the Sons of Liberty’s escapades was the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773. That particular protest contrasts with recent protests we’ve seen ….


(Click for larger version.)

Well might we ask ourselves, who are today’s true-born Sons of Liberty? And for what liberty do they fight?

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Measuring Some of the Hazards of Spaceflight

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Forty years ago today — August 13, 1972 — Explorer 46 launched from Wallops Island, Virginia, atop a Scout rocket.


(Refurbished backup Meteoroid Technology Satellite. National Air & Space Musuem image.)

Also known as the Meteoroid Technology Satellite, the spacecraft was built to measure meteoroid velocity, distribution, and penetration in target panels that extended from the body of the vehicle. According to this National Air & Space Musuem archival page, the satellite recorded twenty meteoroid and over two thousand micrometeoroid impacts through December 1972.

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Pioneering High-Energy Astronomy

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Thirty-five years ago today — August 12– High-Energy Astronomy Observatory 1 (HEAO 1) was launched by an Atlas Centaur from Cape Canaveral.


(X-ray source catalog from HEAO-1’s all-sky survey. NASA image.)

HEAO 1 was the first satellite in a series of three to study X-ray and gamma-ray sources. HEAO 1, in particular,

was specifically designed to map and survey the celestial sphere for X-ray and gamma-ray sources in the energy range of 150 eV to 10 MeV, to establish the size and precise location of X-ray sources to determine the contribution of discrete sources to the X-ray background, and to measure time variations of X-ray sources.

The HEAO 1 observatory was capable of scanning the entire celestial sphere in 6 months, but failure of some of the detector components meant the complete survey took longer than planned. In addition, the instruments had to be turned off when passing through the inner Van Allen radiation belt to protect itself from damage. The mission lasted until January 9, 1979, during which HEAO 1 compiled a comprehensive catalog of X-ray sources, classified several hundred X-ray source with their visible-light companions, and discovered the first X-ray eclipse in a low-mass binary star.

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First Dual-Spacecraft Flight, 50 Years Ago

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Fifty years ago today — August 11, 1962 — the USSR launched Vostok 3 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The very next day, they launched Vostok 4, marking the first time two crewed space vehicles were in orbit at the same time.

Vostok 3 carried cosmonaut Andrian G. Nikolayev, and Vostok 4 carried cosmonaut Pavel R. Popovich. The closest approach between their two spacecraft was about 5 km. Both spacecraft de-orbited on August 15th.

The best online images of the Vostok 3 & 4 mission seem to be held closely by the web site owners, but: playing off the “Vostok” theme, and since we’ve been captivated by the Curiosity rover’s recent landing on Mars, the image below shows the track of one of Curiosity’s predecessor’s near Vostok Crater.


(Mars Rover Opportunity’s track near Vostok crater. NASA image.)

A 360-degree view extending from the above image can be seen in this panoramic view.

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Surveying the Ocean's Topography, from Space

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Twenty years ago today — August 10, 1992 — an Ariane 42P launch vehicle launched from Kourou, French Guiana, carrying the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite.


(TOPEX/Poseidon. NASA image.)

Officially the Ocean Topography Experiment, TOPEX/Poseidon was a joint mission between NASA and France’s Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales to measure sea-surface heights from a space-based radar platform. It was also the second spacecraft in the “Mission to Planet Earth” program.

The TOPEX/Poseidon spacecraft was decommissioned in January 2006, but the Jason-1 and Jason-2 follow-on spacecraft are continuing the mission. The Ocean Surface Topography page presents details on all of the missions associated with the space-based study of our world’s oceans.

So, next time you’re at the beach and thinking about how high the waves are, remember that satellites hundreds of miles above you are looking down, thinking about the same thing.

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A Shuttle Flight More Than Two Decades in the Making

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Five years ago today — August 8, 2007 — the Space Shuttle Endeavour launched from Kennedy Space Center on an International Space Station construction mission.


(Mission specialist Barbara Morgan on the shuttle’s middeck during STS-118. NASA image.)

On mission STS-118, U.S. astronauts Scott J. Kelly, Charles O. Hobaugh, Richard A. Mastracchio, Barbara R. Morgan, Tracy E. Caldwell, and Benjamin Alvin Drew, along with Canadian astronaut Dafydd (Dave) Williams, delivered and installed a new truss segment to the ISS. They also replaced a failed control moment gyro — part of the attitude control system that keeps the station in the correct orientation — and transferred supplies for the station residents.

Astronaut Morgan was originally Christa McAuliffe’s back-up for the STS-51L mission that ended when the Challenger was destroyed. The June 2007 mission overview for STS-118 explained,

Morgan trained side by side with McAuliffe and witnessed the 1986 Challenger accident in which McAuliffe and her six fellow crew members died. The Teacher in Space Project was suspended then, but Morgan held on to her NASA ties. In the months following that tragedy, she went on the visits McAuliffe would have made, talking to children and teachers all over the country. Then, when she was selected in 1998 to become a full-fledged astronaut, she jumped at the opportunity.

In 2002, Morgan was chosen as the first educator to become a mission specialist astronaut. The Educator Astronaut Project evolved from the Teacher in Space Project. Both aimed to engage and attract students to explore the excitement and wonder of spaceflight and to inspire and support educators. Morgan’s primary duty is the same as it is for the entire crew — accomplish the planned objectives of the station assembly mission.

She had been selected as the Teacher in Space backup candidate in July 1985, and so waited 22 years for her space mission. No wonder she looks happy, though it must have been somewhat bittersweet.

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