Category Archives: Space

Space History from 1610 (and later)

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Four hundred years ago this week — in 1610 — Galileo Galilei turned his telescope toward Saturn and observed the giant planet’s rings. He didn’t recognize them as rings, however.


(Hubble Space Telescope edge-on view of Saturn’s rings. NASA image.)

(N.B. I’ve found three different dates for the event: today, July 30; July 25; and July 15. July 25th shows up more often than the other dates, so I feel safe in saying “this week.”)

Galileo’s telescope was not powerful enough to resolve the rings; they appeared as separate bodies on either side of Saturn. Galileo wrote that “the star of Saturn is not a single star, but is a composite of three, which almost touch each other, never change or move relative to each other, and are arranged in a row along the zodiac, the middle one being three times larger than the two lateral ones, and they are situated in this form o O o.”

In his 1612 observation they were gone entirely, because he was viewing them edge-on as in the Hubble image above. In 1616 he observed them again and they appeared as two half-ellipses. He did not recognize them as rings even then: that explanation came from Christaan Huygens in 1655.

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Moving forward to the last century, 55 years ago today (July 30, 1955) the Soviet Union announced its plan to launch a satellite — which the world came to know later as Sputnik — as part of the upcoming International Geophysical Year.

And on this date in 1965 — 45 years ago — NASA launched Saturn-10 from Cape Canaveral, carrying the third Pegasus micrometeroid detection satellite and Apollo Boiler Plate BP-9.

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Spacelab Mission, Plus Space History Tidbits

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Twenty-five years ago today — July 29, 1985 — the Space Shuttle Challenger lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-51F. During the launch, the number one main engine shut down ahead of schedule; NASA declared an “Abort To Orbit,” but was able to re-plan the mission to complete all of its objectives.

Astronauts Charles G. Fullerton, Roy D. Bridges, Karl G. Henize, Anthony W. England, F. Story Musgrave, Loren W. Acton and John-David E Bartoe conducted life sciences, plasma physics, astronomy, and other experiments in the Spacelab-2 module before returning to earth on August 6th. They landed at Edwards Air Force Base.


(STS-51F landing at Edwards AFB (August 6, 1985). NASA image.)

(Of personal interest: When we were stationed at Edwards later in the 80s, General Bridges was the AF Flight Test Center commander. We only met him a couple of times, but his son was part of the Protestant Youth of the Chapel group we helped lead.)

Now, for those space history tidbits:

On July 29, 1955 — 55 years ago today — the White House announced the upcoming International Geophysical Year (IGY), for which the U.S. planned to launch a satellite. As you know, the Soviets’ Sputnik beat us to it.

Around this date 50 years ago — one source said July 29, another July 28 — NASA announced that the program aimed at the moon would be named “Apollo.” The name had actually been suggested six months earlier by NASA engineer Abe Silverstein. (Note that this was before President Kennedy was elected, and therefore long before he announced his support of the lunar landing program.)

Finally, on this date 50 years ago — July 29, 1960 — the first unmanned Mercury launch was attempted from Cape Canaveral. Mercury-Atlas-1 (MA-1) exploded at about eight miles altitude. We still had a long way to go.

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First Launch from Cape Canaveral, 50 Years Ago

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A half-century ago today — July 24, 1950 — the U.S. conducted its first Cape Canaveral launch.


(Bumper-8 launch. NASA image. Note how close the people are to the launch pad, and the gantry that looks like standard construction scaffolding.)

The rocket was called a Bumper, and consisted of a single-stage V-2 rocket with a Wac Corporal rocket installed as a second stage. Several Bumper vehicles had been successfully launched from the White Sands Missile Range, but this was the first-ever launch from Cape Canaveral.

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Single Comet, Dual Discovery

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Fifteen years ago today — July 23, 1995 — Comet Hale-Bopp was discovered nearly simultaneously by Alan Hale and Tom Bopp.


(Comet Hale-Bopp and the Bodie Island Lighthouse, Nags Head, NC. Photographed by Drew Wilson on March 22, 1997. Image from the JPL Comet Hale-Bopp gallery. Requested permission.)

The two astronomers were making independent observations and each discovered the comet while it was still beyond the orbit of Jupiter, making it “the farthest comet ever discovered by amateurs.”

When it made its closest approach to Earth in March 1997, Comet Hale-Bopp was one of the brightest comets seen in the 20th Century. (We saw it from the front yard of our house in Colorado Springs.)

Hale, by his own account both a professional and an amateur astronomer,* described the discovery in September 1995:

On the night of July 22-23 — the first clear night here in a week and a half — I had planned to observe two comets. I finished with the first one — Periodic Comet Clark — shortly before midnight, and had about an hour and a half to wait before the second one — Periodic Comet d’Arrest — rose high enough in the east to get a good look at. I decided to pass the time by observing some deep-sky objects in Sagittarius, and when I turned my telescope (a Meade DS-16) to M70, I immediately noticed a fuzzy object in the field that hadn’t been there when I had looked at M70 two weeks earlier. After verifying that I was indeed looking at M70, and not one of the many other globular clusters in that part of the sky, I checked the various deep-sky catalogues, then ran the comet-identification program at the IAU Central Bureau’s computer in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I sent an email to … the Central Bureau at that time informing them of a possible comet; later, when I had verified that the object had moved against the background stars, I sent them an additional email. I continued to follow the comet for a total of about 3 hours, until it set behind trees in the southwest, and then was able to email a detailed report, complete with two positions.

While Hale was observing the comet from his New Mexico location, Bopp also saw the comet from just south of Phoenix, Arizona. When the International Astronomical Union announced the discovery of the new comet, it carried both men’s names.

Hale’s blog hasn’t been updated in awhile, but it’s available here as part of the Cosmic Diary.

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Comet Hale-Bopp, of course, is also remembered as the catalyst for the multiple suicides of members of the “Heaven’s Gate” cult. I prefer to give its discovery a more prominent place than that later unfortunate episode.

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*And not the Skipper on Gilligan’s Island.

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India Joins the Space Club

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Thirty years ago today — July 18, 1980 — the country of India became the seventh nation to launch a spacecraft using an indigenous rocket system.

Ronihi (also known as RS-1, for “Rohini Satellite 1”) was launched from Sriharikota Space Center on an SLV-3 rocket by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). RS-1 was a test satellite, used to evaluate the launch vehicle’s performance — particularly the performance of the rocket’s fourth stage.

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First Close-Up Pictures of Mars: 1965

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Forty-five years ago today — Bastille Day 1965 — the Mariner-4 spacecraft took the first close-up photographs of Mars.


(First close-up image of Mars, from Mariner-4. NASA image.)

Mariner-4 had been launched from Cape Canaveral on November 28, 1964 (for which, see this space history installment).

From the National Space Science Data Center page linked above,

After 7.5 months of flight involving one midcourse maneuver on 5 December 1964, the spacecraft flew by Mars on July 14 and 15, 1965. Planetary science mode was turned on at 15:41:49 UT on 14 July. The camera sequence started at 00:18:36 UT on July 15 (7:18:49 p.m. EST on July 14) and 21 pictures plus 21 lines of a 22nd picture were taken [and] stored in the onboard tape recorder. At 02:19:11 UT Mariner 4 passed behind Mars as seen from Earth and the radio signal ceased. The signal was reacquired at 03:13:04 UT when the spacecraft reappeared. Cruise mode was then re-established. Transmission of the taped images to Earth began about 8.5 hours after signal reacquisition and continued until 3 August. All images were transmitted twice to insure no data was missing or corrupt.


(First image of craters on the surface of Mars, from Mariner-4. NASA image.)

More Mariner-4 images are available on this NASA page.

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Space History: Shuttle Launch Delayed … By Woodpeckers

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Fifteen years ago today — July 13, 1995 — the Space Shuttle Discovery launched from Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-70. The mission had been scheduled to launch in June, but over Memorial Day weekend woodpeckers damaged the insulating foam on the external tank (shown below), which had to be repaired before the launch could proceed.


(STS-70 external tank, showing woodpecker damage. NASA image.)

Once the mission finally got underway, astronauts Terence T. Henricks, Kevin R. Kregel, Nancy Jane Currie, Donald A. Thomas, and Mary Ellen Weber deployed the seventh Tracking Data and Relay Satellite (TDRS-G). They also completed a number of experiments over the course of their 8 days in space.

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'Cornerstone' of the International Space Station

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Ten years ago today — July 12, 2000 — the Zvezda (“star”) service module was launched atop a Proton-K rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.


(Zvezda module diagram. NASA image from Wikimedia Commons.)

The module docked with the nascent International Space Station (ISS) a few days later, and became “the early cornerstone” of the station.

If you want to know more about how the space station was built, this NASA page outlines the sequence of assembly for the ISS.

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Of X-Rays and Photons: Two Japanese Space Missions

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Five years ago today — July 10, 2005 — the Japanese Suzaku spacecraft launched from the Uchinoura Space Center in Japan.

Also known as Astro-E2, Suzaku included U.S.-built X-ray telescopes from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

The Suzaku mission helped complete the picture we have of the universe in the X-ray portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Here’s the GSFC page about their part of the mission.

And yesterday another Japanese mission achieved the largest-ever acceleration of a spacecraft by impingement of photons on a solar sail.


(Image of the Ikaros solar sail, taken from the separation camera. From the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) June 28 press release.)

The Ikaros demonstrator had been launched on May 20th along with the Venus-bound Akatsuki probe, with the express purpose of testing solar sail technology. Here’s the Spaceflight Now report on its remarkable accomplishment.

The Japanese are planning a larger-scale solar sail mission for later this decade.

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Europe's First Deep Space Mission

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Twenty-five years ago today — July 2, 1985 — the European Space Agency launched the Giotto spacecraft on an Ariane-1 booster out of French Guiana.

Giotto was the ESA’s first deep space mission, launched to study Comet Halley (which I grew up calling Halley’s Comet, but somewhere along the line the naming convention seems to have changed).


(Image of Comet Halley from Giotto. ESA image from NASA’s National Space Science Data Center.)

Giotto rendezvoused with Comet Halley in March 1986 and passed within 600 km (c. 370 mi) of the comet’s nucleus. The spacecraft was not expected to survive its encounter, and cometary dust did damage it, but the probe and most of its instruments continued to function. As a result, the ESA extended the Giotto mission to rendezvous with comet Grigg-Skjellerup, making Giotto the first spacecraft to rendezvous with two comets.

More images from the Giotto mission are available on this ESA page.

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