Category Archives: Space

First Satellite from Down Under

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Forty-five years ago today — November 29, 1967 — Australia launched its first satellite into orbit.


(Construction of Wresat-1. Australian Space Research Institute image.)

Called Wresat 1, the spacecraft was built by the Australian Weapons Research Establishment — the “WRE” in Wresat. The small satellite was launched from Woomera atop a Sparta launch vehicle (a modified Redstone rocket). It sent back data for five days, and deorbited after 42 days.

This Australian Space Research Institute page has additional information on Wresat’s development and launch.

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ISS Expansion, a Decade Ago

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Ten years ago today — November 23, 2002 — the Space Shuttle Endeavour launched from the Kennedy Space Center en route to the International Space Station.


(The shuttle’s cargo bay during STS-113, with the limb of the earth providing the main illumination. NASA image.)

Mission STS-113 astronauts Paul Lockhart, James B. Wetherbee, Michael E. Lopez-Alegria, John B. Herrington, Kenneth B. Bowersox, and Donald R. Pettit, along with cosmonaut Nikolai M. Budarin, delivered and installed the P1 truss on the space station. This mission also exchanged the ISS Expedition Five crew — cosmonauts Valery Korzun and Sergei Treschev and astronaut Peggy Whitson — with the Expedition Six crew — Bowersox, Pettit and Budarin.

Also on this date, 35 years ago, the European Space Agency’s Meteosat 1 was launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta rocket as part of the Global Atmospheric Research Program.

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Two Weeks of Microgravity Science

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Fifteen years ago today — November 19, 1997 — the Space Shuttle Columbia launched from the Kennedy Space Center on the eighth shuttle flight of 1997.


(Shuttle Columbia in the Vehicle Assembly Building, prior to mission STS-87. NASA image.)

STS-87 carried U.S. astronauts Steven W. Lindsey, Kevin R. Kregel, Winston E. Scott, and Kalpana Chawla, Japanese astronaut Takao Doi, and Ukrainian cosmonaut Leonid K. Kadenyuk. The crew spent a little over 15-1/2 days in space, primarily operating the US Microgravity Payload on its fourth mission.

The crew also deployed the SPARTAN free-flying observatory, but problems with its attitude control system made it necessary to retrieve and stow it. During the retrieval operation, Doi became the first Japanese astronaut to complete a spacewalk.

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Project High Water II

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Fifty years ago today — November 16, 1962 — another pre-Apollo test flight of the Saturn-1 launch vehicle was made from Cape Canaveral.


(SA-3 on the launch pad. NASA image.)

Dubbed SA-3, this mission was the first to be flown with the Saturn first stage fully-fueled. The upper stages carred 23,000 gallons of water which would be released in the “Project High Water II” cloud experiment.

When the vehicle reached the zenith of its sub-orbital flight, the upper stage was detonated to release the water. The resulting cloud of ice particles was intended to shed light on the physics of the upper atmosphere, but the telemetry was not good enough to produce reliable data.

Aside from the poor data from the “High Water” experiment, however, the main objectives for the flight test itself were all met.

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First Operational Shuttle Mission, 1982

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A fine Veteran’s Day to you all …

Thirty years ago today — November 11, 1982 — the Space Shuttle Columbia launched from Kennedy Space Center on the first truly operational mission of the shuttle program.


(Satellite release from STS-5. NASA image.)

Mission STS-5 astronauts Vance D. Brand, Robert F. Overmyer, Joseph P. Allen, and William B. Lenoir carried two commercial communications satellites to orbit and released them from the shuttle’s payload bay. Both SBS 3, belonging to Satellite Business Systems, and Telesat Canada’s Anik C3 were successfully launched during the mission. The shuttle landed at Edwards Air Force Base five days after its launch.

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Space History Today: First Successful Saturn V Launch

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Forty-five years ago today — November 9, 1967 — NASA launched the unmanned Apollo 4 mission from the Kennedy Space Center.


(Apollo 4 launch. NASA image.)

Also known as Apollo-Saturn 501, Apollo 4 was the first test flight of the complete Saturn V rocket, carrying a full-up Command and Service Module. The mission was designed to test

  • launch vehicle and spacecraft compatibility
  • the vehicle’s structural integrity under launch loads
  • heat shield and thermal systems
  • stage separation and reentry operations
  • and other factors, including mission support facilities and operations

It wouldn’t be long after Apollo 4 before crews were launching on operational Apollo missions.

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Another Election is Over … Plus Some Space History

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“Every country has the government it deserves.” So said Joseph de Maistre, and his words ring true to me.

What is it we deserve, then? On a national level, it seems that the politics of class warfare, handouts, and cradle-to-grave coddling have again won the day, and since the resulting system is unlikely to be sustainable over the long term, it seems that we deserve to — or we have at least voted to — decline as a nation. I hate to think it, and I will work to postpone and even correct it, but we seem to be living out the aphorism about the people destroying the republic by voting themselves largesse out of the public treasury.*

Meanwhile, the calendar turned over, and it is another day. And forty-five years ago today — November 7, 1967 — Surveyor 6, the fourth in the series to soft-land on the Moon, was launched from Cape Canaveral on an Atlas Centaur rocket. It would be less than two years before human beings — our countrymen — walked on the Moon.


(We went there, a long time ago, remember? NASA image.)

We had ambitions then, and big dreams. Those were the days.

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*Attributed in various forms to several different people, including Benjamin Franklin, George Orwell, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Alexander Fraser Tytler.

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Laika's Launch

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Fifty-five years ago today — November 3, 1957 — the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 2 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.


(Laika, in her padded cabin. Image from the National Space Science Data Center.)

Sputnik 2 is most famous for carrying a dog, Laika, the first living thing in orbit.

The first being to travel to outer space was a female part-Samoyed terrier originally named Kudryavka (Little Curly) but later renamed Laika (Barker). She weighed about 6 kg. The pressurized cabin on Sputnik 2 allowed enough room for her to lie down or stand and was padded. An air regeneration system provided oxygen; food and water were dispensed in a gelatinized form. Laika was fitted with a harness, a bag to collect waste, and electrodes to monitor vital signs. The early telemetry indicated Laika was agitated but eating her food. There was no capability of returning a payload safely to Earth at this time, so it was planned that Laika would run out of oxygen after about 10 days of orbiting the Earth.

Unfortunately, part of the spacecraft did not separate, which interfered with the cooling system. In addition, some thermal insulation came loose during launch. As a result, it is believed that Laika “only survived a day or two” before her spacecraft fell back to Earth.

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Space Station Expansion … and Repairs

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Five years ago today — October 23, 2007 — the Space Shuttle Discovery launched from the Kennedy Space Center on a mission to the International Space Station.


(Astronaut Parazynski approaching the damaged P6 solar array. NASA image.)

The mission STS-120 crew — Pamela A. Melroy, Daniel M. Tani,, George D. Zamka, Douglas H. Wheelock, Scott E. Parazynski, Stephanie D. Wilson, and Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli — spent a little over two weeks in space, and installed the connecting module called Harmony on the ISS. The new node, named by schoolchildren in a contest, would make it possible for the European Columbus and the Japanese Kibo laboratories to be connected to the ISS on future missions.

When STS-120 docked with the ISS, it marked the first time two women — Pamela Melroy on the shuttle, and Peggy Whitson of ISS Expedition 16 — commanded the two spacecraft at the same time. The mission also involved impromptu repair work: one of the solar arrays on the ISS’s P6 truss, which had been folded while the truss was moved to a new location, snagged on a guide wire when they were unfolded. Mission controllers and the crew were able to plan and execute the repair before the orbiter returned to Earth.

Read more details of this mission in this comprehensive mission overview.

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International Science in Space History

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Twenty years ago today — October 22, 1992 — the Space Shuttle Columbia launched from the Kennedy Space Center on an international science mission.


(LAGEOS-II deployment from STS-52. NASA image.)

STS-52 carried a six-member crew: James D. Wetherbee, Michael A. Baker, Charles L. Veach, William M. Shepherd, Tamara E. Jernigan, and Canadian astronaut Steven G. MacLean. They deployed the joint U.S.-Italian Laser Geodynamic Satellite II (LAGEOS II) — second in a series of laser-ranging target satellites* — and conducted a variety of internationally-sponsored materials science experiments.

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LAGEOS I had been launched in 1976.

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