Author Archives: Gray Rinehart

Space History Today: First European Navigation Satellite Launch

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Five years ago today — December 28, 2005 — the European Space Agency launched its first navigation satellite.

The Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element-A (GIOVE-A) spacecraft launched on a Soyuz-Fregat rocket out of the Baikonur Cosmodrome. It was the first of the planned European navigation constellation modeled after (and intended to be independent from) the U.S. Global Positioning System. Designed to operate an estimated 2 years, GIOVE-A is still operational today.

The European system, named Galileo, was to be complete by the end of this year, with all 30 satellites (27 active and 3 spares) on orbit and operational. To date, however, only GIOVE-A and GIOVE-B are in orbit, with the first four operational satellites (serving also as In-Orbit Validation spacecraft) set to be launched in 2011.

[BREAK, BREAK]

And, in unrelated Galileo space history, 10 years ago today the Galileo spacecraft flew by Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede, for the sixth time. The flyby was timed while Ganymede was in Jupiter’s shadow, to look for any auroral activity. Otherwise, it just gives me an excuse to link to this cool image:


(Ganymede, taken by the Galileo spacecraft on its first flyby. NASA image.)

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Under the Dark Full Moon

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Did you get to see the lunar eclipse early this morning?

Instead of staying up late to see the beginning of the eclipse, I decided to get up early to catch it at its darkest. I didn’t even have to set an alarm; I rolled out of bed a little after 3 a.m., tossed on my sweats, and stepped outside to see … clouds.

The clouds were especially dark, in the approximate place where the Moon would have been. Normally a full Moon would shine through the clouds, but not last night.

I failed at going back to sleep, so around 4 a.m. I took a walk under the clouds and the invisible Moon. About halfway through my walk the clouds thinned enough that I thought I saw the limb of the Moon, recently unshadowed. Then the clouds re-asserted themselves and I completed my walk, and when I returned I thankfully got to sleep for a little while.

I hope you had better luck with your eclipse-viewing!

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Discoverer-19: CORONA Meets Missile Detection

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Fifty years ago today — December 20, 1960 — the Discoverer-19 satellite launched from Vandenberg AFB.


(Discoverer-19 “launch cover” postcard, cancelled the day of launch. From the “Unmanned Satellite Philately” site created by Don Hillger and Garry Toth at Colorado State University.)

Part of the CORONA program and listed as an Air Force photoreconnaissance satellite, Discoverer-19 “did not carry a film capsule,” but was launched “as a test for the MIDAS missile-detection system.” MIDAS, the “Missile Detection Alarm System,” was an infrared detection system and precursor to the Defense Support Program and Space-Based Infrared systems.

The National Reconnaissance Office produced an interesting history of MIDAS, declassified in the late 1990s. That history points out that Discoverer-19 carried instruments to measure the background IR radiation emitted by the Earth “to confirm the technical feasibility of the MIDAS concept.”

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Mercury-Redstone-1A

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Fifty years ago today — December 19, 1960 — the first Mercury-Redstone capsule was sent into space.


(Mercury-Redstone-1A launch. NASA image.)

MR-1A was a suborbital flight from Cape Canaveral, designated “1A” because MR-1 had failed its launch attempt in November. This flight was intended to qualify the systems for eventual orbital flights, and it achieved all the mission objectives.

This particular launch — and especially the name of that launch vehicle — presents a good opportunity for a plug for Redstone Science Fiction, the new online magazine that published my story, “Memorial at Copernicus.” Shameless, I know … but I can live with that.

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Gemini Titan VI

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Forty-five years ago today — December 15, 1965 — astronauts Walter M. Schirra, Jr. and Thomas P. Stafford launched from Cape Canaveral on the Gemini VI-A mission.


(The Gemini-VI capsule, taken from Gemini-VII. NASA image. Note the “Beat Army” message.)

Gemini-6A was originally scheduled to launch on October 25th, but that launch was cancelled because the rendezvous target vehicle — an Agena, launched an hour before the scheduled Gemini-6 liftoff — did not reach orbit. The mission was recycled and another attempt was made on December 12th, but “the launch was aborted one second after engine ignition because an electrical umbilical separated prematurely. This was the first time an astronaut mission was aborted after ignition start.”

As we noted a few days ago, Gemini-VII was already in orbit, and rendezvoused with Gemini-VI while the two spacecraft were in orbit together:

First radar lock indicated a distance of 396 km. Two more major thruster burns preceded the final braking maneuver at 2:27 p.m. EST. Rendezvous was technically achieved and stationkeeping begun at 2:33 with the two Gemini spacecraft in zero relative motion at a distance of 110 meters. Stationkeeping maneuvers involving the spacecraft circling each other and approaching and backing off continued for 5 hours 19 minutes over three and a half orbits.

I find it interesting that this launch occurred five years to the day after the Pioneer-31 (or Pioneer-Z, or Atlas Able 5B) mission, to place a satellite in orbit around the Moon, failed when the booster exploded a minute after liftoff. Especially in the early days, no doubt our astronauts were all “steely-eyed missile men.”

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The Beginning of Space-Based X-Ray Astronomy

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Forty years ago today — December 12, 1970 — NASA launched Explorer-42, the first of a series of small observatories, from the San Marco launch platform off the coast of Kenya.


(The Uhuru satellite in pre-flight checkout, with Dr. Marjorie Townsend [who named the spacecraft] and Dr. Bruno Rossi. NASA image.)

Also called Uhuru, the spacecraft was built to scan the celestial sphere for X-ray sources. In fact, the catalog of sources developed from its data is still in use. Other spacecraft in the series were built to survey the sky in other energy regimes, e.g., in the gamma-ray and ultraviolet parts of the spectrum.

According to this page of Goddard Space Flight Center “Facts and Firsts,” Uhuru “catalogued more than 200 X-ray sources and found the first evidence for a black hole” at Cygnus X-1.

This NASA “Imagine the Universe!” page points out that Uhuru means “freedom” in Swahili, and the spacecraft was so named in honor of its Kenyan hosts. It was also launched on the seventh anniversary of Kenya’s independence.

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New Agency's First Satellite

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Forty years ago today — December 11, 1970 — the newly-formed National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) launched its first satellite.


(Graphic of ITOS satellite, from Wikimedia Commons. NOAA image.)

NOAA-1, also known as Improved TIROS Operational Satellite-A (ITOS-A),* launched from Cape Canaveral on a Thor-Delta rocket. It was the first satellite to carry the NOAA designation, since NOAA had just come into being as part of the U.S. Department of Commerce on October 3, 1970. (Though they just completed their 40th year, at the time of this writing this page celebrates their 30th anniversary.)

For those interested in such things, here’s an August 1968 Technical Memorandum on the ITOS satellite.

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*Got to love the acronym-within-an-acronym: the full name would be the Improved Television and Infrared Observation Satellite Operational Satellite.

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On Reaching the Semi-Finals For the First Time

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Yesterday the Writers of the Future contest folks posted the list of 3rd quarter semi-finalists and finalists, on which you’ll find yours truly … marking the first time I’ve made it to that level of the contest.

It feels good to have made it past the “Honorable Mention” hurdle, at least this once, though my critical self has had trouble putting it in perspective. Those who know me well won’t be surprised that this milestone produced a variety of thoughts — most of them negative — in my addled brain. Listed here in the approximate order in which they occurred to me:

  • “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then”
  • “Maybe I’m getting better at telling a good story”
  • “The competition must’ve been fairly weak this quarter”
  • “If the best story I ever wrote only rates a semi-finalist slot, maybe I should give up this writing stuff”
  • “I wish I’d made one more editing pass over the new story I just sent to them”

But, as I posted on Twitter and Facebook and have told anyone who would listen, I liken this to a great drive off the tee that makes up for dozens of hooks and slices and keeps the weekend golfer coming back for more. Even a minor writing triumph like this is enough to keep me coming back.

To take that metaphor a little further, I left this story on the green and need to make a good putt to finish well. The nice thing is that every semi-finalist story is critiqued by the contest director, and her comments were direct and insightful. Now I just have to figure out how to fix the problem she found in such a way that the story has a more satisfying ending — though I wish that was going to be as easy as it sounds. But if I read the green correctly and stroke the ball well, I might yet make something of this story.

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Gemini-VII: Another Step Toward the Moon

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Forty-five years ago today — December 5, 1965 — astronauts Frank Borman and James A. Lovell, Jr. were orbiting the earth in their Gemini capsule.


(The full Moon seen above the limb of the Earth, taken from Gemini-7 on December 8, 1965. NASA image.)

Gemini-7 actually launched 45 years ago yesterday, from Cape Canaveral atop a Titan launch vehicle. (It’s also known as Gemini-Titan-7.)

Borman and Lovell spent 2 weeks in orbit, and performed the first space rendezvous with Gemini-6, which was supposed to launch first but was delayed by a problem with its Titan booster.

Stationkeeping maneuvers involving the spacecraft circling each other and approaching and backing off continued for 5 hours 19 minutes over three and a half orbits. During the maneuvers, all four astronauts on both spacecraft took turns in the formation flying activities and photographs were taken from both spacecraft. This marked the first time two spacecraft were maneuvered with respect to each other by their crews.

Read more about the program at this Gemini history page.

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Congratulations to the X-37B Team!

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A little over 7 months after its launch, this morning the X-37B landed successfully at Vandenberg AFB, according to this VAFB press release.


(Artist’s conception of the X-37. NASA image.)

This program has elicited some interesting commentary in the press. As I wrote in the Space Warfare Forum the day after the launch,

I find it interesting that the news outlets make such frequent use of the word “secret” to describe something that a) they’ve been given pictures of and written articles about, and b) they knew ahead of time was going to launch. Fox News, “a mission shrouded in secrecy,” really? Metro UK, “secret military robot shuttle”? They don’t know what secrecy is.

What a far cry from the days when only the launch and payload crews knew what was on top of the rocket, and the first time most other people found out about the launch was when it thundered away in the distance. And most people never knew what the payload was.

For the curious, here’s more on the X-37 itself.

And again, congratulations to everyone involved — well done!

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