Tag Archives: launch

Soviet Lunar Sample Return

By | |
Comments Off on Soviet Lunar Sample Return

Forty years ago today — February 14, 1972 — a Proton-K rocket launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome carrying the latest lunar sampling mission from the Soviet Union.


(Luna-20 sample return capsule in the Kazakhstan snow. Image from the NSSDC.)

Luna-20, or Lunik-20, arrived in lunar orbit on the 18th and soft-landed on the Moon on the 21st. It landed less than 2 km from the crash site of its predecessor, Luna-18.

The robotic spacecraft extended a drill which it used to collect samples of the lunar soil. According to the National Space Science Data Center, the craft collected 30 grams of soil; however, according to NASA’s Solar System Exploration site, the total was 55 grams. The return vessel brought the sample back to earth on February 25th, making this the second successful robotic sampling mission. The Soviets traded 2 grams of the Luna-20 sample to NASA for 1 gram of Apollo-15 soil.

Luna-20 landed in the Apollonius highlands, a mountainous region near Mare Foecunditatis, the “Sea of Fertility.” A sideways reference to its Valentine’s Day launch? You be the judge.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Last Titan-IIIB Launch … and the Latest Asimov's

By | |
Comments Off on Last Titan-IIIB Launch … and the Latest Asimov's

Twenty-five years ago today — February 12, 1987 — a Titan-IIIB launched from Vandenberg AFB carrying a Satellite Data System (SDS) spacecraft.


(Undated Titan-IIIB [34B] launch. Image from Lee Brandon-Cremer via Wikimedia Commons. Almost certainly this was originally a USAF photograph.)

According to the National Space Science Data Cnter, SDS satellites operated in highly elliptical orbits and

served as a communications link between the Air Force Satellite Control Facility at Sunnyvale, CA, and 7 remote tracking stations located at Vandenberg AFB, Hawaii, Guam, Nahe Island, Greenland, the UK, and Boston.

This is significant to me because I know the tracking station in Greenland well. Many years later I commanded it: callsign POGO, the Thule Tracking Station.

According to this Wikipedia page, this was the last launch of the Titan-IIIB series. This particular vehicle was one of the -34B variants.

At the time of that launch, I was stationed at the AF Rocket Propulsion Laboratory at Edwards AFB, helping prepare for a static test of a full-scale solid rocket motor in support of the Titan-34D “recovery” program. But that’s another story.

And speaking of stories: yesterday my contributor’s copies of the April/May issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction arrived, and there on page 72 is my story, “Sensitive, Compartmented.”

So … space history that relates in part to my own USAF experience, and a new short story. That makes for a pretty good weekend.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Second Hubble Servicing Mission

By | |
Comments Off on Second Hubble Servicing Mission

Fifteen years ago today — February 11, 1997 — the Space Shuttle Discovery launched from Kennedy Space Center on a mission to refurbish the Hubble Space Telescope.


(Astronauts Steven Smith and Mark Lee ride the Shuttle’s remote manipulator arm while effecting repairs on the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA image.)

Mission STS-82 astronauts Kenneth D. Bowersox, Scott J. Horowitz, Mark C. Lee, Steven A. Hawley, Gregory J. Harbaugh, Steven L. Smith, and Joseph R. Tanner completed five spacewalks during the mission and placed the telescope in a higher orbit.

The astronauts

  • Replaced the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph
  • Replaced the Faint Object Spectrograph with the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer
  • Replaced a degraded Fine Guidance Sensor and a failed Engineering and Science Tape Recorder
  • Installed the Optical Control Electronics Enhancement Kit to increase the capability of the Fine Guidance Sensor
  • Replaced a Data Interface Unit and an old reel-to-reel Engineering and Science Tape Recorder with a new digital Solid State Recorder
  • Changed out one of four Reaction Wheel Assemblies
  • Replaced a Solar Array Drive Electronics package

During the second EVA crewmembers “noted cracking and wear on thermal insulation on side of telescope facing the sun and in the direction of travel.” Mission controllers added a fifth spacewalk to the schedule so the astronauts could install insulating blankets — some of which were put together on Discovery‘s middeck during the mission — over key component areas.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Last Launches from Algeria, Plus Two Weather Satellites

By | |
Comments Off on Last Launches from Algeria, Plus Two Weather Satellites

Forty-five years ago today — February 8, 1967 — France launched the Diademe-1 satellite atop a Diamant-A rocket from their Hammaguir, Algeria, launch site. Exactly a week later they launched Diademe-2. These appear to be the last launch campaigns conducted at the Hammaguir site.


(Diamant launch vehicle static display. Photo by “I, Captainm,” licensed under Creative Commons, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Diademe-1 and its sister satellite were “designed for experimental geodetic studies using Doppler effect and laser telemetry techniques,” and were tracked by French and other ground stations around the world. According to this Wikipedia page on the Diamant launch vehicle, Diademe-1 was placed in a lower-than-expected orbit; however, the National Space Science Data Center did not mention that fact.

On the same 1967 date as the Diademe-1 launch, the U.S. launched a Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Block 4 satellite from Vandenberg AFB on a Thor rocket. And on this date 5 years earlier — i.e., 50 years ago — a Thor-Delta launched from Cape Canaveral put the Television and InfraRed Observation Satellite TIROS-4, also a weather satellite, into orbit.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Riding a Pegasus To Observe the Sun

By | |
3 Comments

Ten years ago today — February 5, 2002 — a Pegasus-XL rocket launched a solar flare observatory into orbit. The Pegasus’s L-1011 carrier aircraft flew out of Cape Canaveral for this launch.


(Artist’s conception of HESSI. NASA image.)

About two months after being launched, the High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager, or HESSI, was renamed the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI). It is still on-orbit and functioning today.

As some folks know, the Pegasus is special to me because I was on the Flight Readiness Review Committee for the first-ever live launch. And this seems a timely bit of space history, given the big solar flare that occurred about a week ago.

And in bonus space history: on this date 25 years ago, cosmonauts Yuri V. Romanenko and Aleksandr I. Laveykin launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on mission Soyuz TM-2. Romanenko eventually spent 326 days in space aboard the Mir space station, establishing a world record.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Last Thor-Delta Launch

By | |
Comments Off on Last Thor-Delta Launch

Forty years ago today — January 31, 1972 — the HEOS (Highly Elliptical Orbit Satellite) A-2 launched from the Western Space and Missile Center at Vandenberg AFB.

HEOS A-2 was built by the European Space Research Organization, the precursor to today’s European Space Agency, to study “interplanetary space and the high-latitude magnetosphere.”

HEOS 2 provided new data on the sources and acceleration mechanisms of particles found in the trapped radiation belts and in the polar precipitation regions and auroral zones. It also monitored solar activity and cosmic radiation.

According to this Wikipedia page on 1972 spaceflight, this was also the last launch of the Thor-Delta rocket configuration, which itself was part of the family of Delta rockets that are still launching satellites today.


(An early Thor-Delta, from 1961. USAF image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Missing the Moon, 50 Years Ago: Ranger-3

By | |
Comments Off on Missing the Moon, 50 Years Ago: Ranger-3

Fifty years ago today — January 26, 1962 — Ranger-3 launched from Cape Canaveral on an Atlas-Agena rocket.


(Ranger-3. NASA image.)

Ranger-3 had several mission goals, only the last of which would be fulfilled:

  • “Transmit pictures of the lunar surface to Earth stations during a period of 10 minutes of flight prior to impacting on the Moon”
  • “Rough-land a seismometer capsule on the Moon”
  • “Collect gamma-ray data in flight”
  • “Study radar reflectivity of the lunar surface”
  • “Continue testing of the Ranger program for development of lunar and interplanetary spacecraft”

The mission profile called for the Atlas-Agena to provide the initial boost toward the Moon, with one mid-course correction on the way. Unfortunately,

A malfunction in the booster guidance system resulted in excessive spacecraft speed. Reversed command signals caused the spacecraft to pitch in the wrong direction and the TM antenna to lose earth acquisition, and mid-course correction was not possible. Finally a spurious signal during the terminal maneuver prevented transmission of useful TV pictures. Ranger 3 missed the Moon by approximately 36,800 km on 28 January and is now in a heliocentric orbit.

Sounds like Mr. Murphy of the eponymous law paid the Ranger program a visit. But, to paraphrase my friend Bill Hixon, a test is worth a thousand expert opinions — and sometimes we learn more from failures than from successes.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

'Buckshot' Launch Attempt

By | |
Comments Off on 'Buckshot' Launch Attempt

A half-century ago today — January 24, 1962 — a Thor AbleStar rocket out of Cape Canaveral attempted, but failed, to launch a group of five small satellites for the U.S. Navy.


(SOLRAD-1, the precursor to SOLRAD-4. US Navy image.)

The launch was called Composite-1, or “Buckshot,” and intended to launch:

  • SOLRAD-4 (Solar Radiation or SR-4) — intended to measure and analyze solar emissions, but also incorporating the GREB IV (Galactic Radiation Experimental Background, also known as Galactic Radiation and Background, or GRAB) reconnaissance payload
  • Lofti III — Low-Frequency Trans-Ionospheric satellite, a follow-on to Lofti-I
  • Injun-II — a University of Iowa payload to study the Van Allen radiation belt
  • Secor — Sequential Collation of Range, an experiment in geolocation
  • Surcal — Surveillance Calibration satellite, used to calibrate the Naval Space Surveillance system

According to the 02/01/62 issue of FLIGHT International, the launch failed because “the second stage of the Thor AbleStar failed to build up thrust after ignition.”

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

International Microgravity Laboratory, Flight 1

By | |
Comments Off on International Microgravity Laboratory, Flight 1

Twenty years ago today — January 22, 1992 — the Space Shuttle Discovery launched from Kennedy Space Center carrying the International Microgravity Laboratory on its maiden voyage.


(IML-1 spacelab module and tunnel in the shuttle’s payload bay. NASA image.)

The STS-42 crew — U.S. astronauts Ronald J. Grabe, Stephen S. Oswald, Norman E. Thagard, David C. Hilmers, and William F. Readdy, Canadian astronaut Roberta L. Bondar, and German astronaut Ulf D. Merbold — “was divided into two teams for around-the-clock research on the human nervous system’s adaptation to low gravity and the effects of microgravity on other life forms.” The crew also conducted materials processing experiments.

The IML-1 experiments were so successful that the mission was extended an exra day — after “mission managers concluded enough onboard consumables remained to extend the mission.”

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Flying Atlantis to Orbiting Peace

By | |
Comments Off on Flying Atlantis to Orbiting Peace

Fifteen years ago today — January 12, 1997 — the Space Shuttle Atlantis launched from the Kennedy Space Center to dock with the Mir (“peace”) space station.


(Shuttle Atlantis rolling out to the pad from the VAB [December 1996]. NASA image.)

Mission STS-81 astronauts Michael A. Baker, Brent W. Jett, Jr., John M. Grunsfeld, Marsha S. Ivins, Peter J. K. Wisoff, and Jerry M. Linenger docked with the Russian station; Linenger stayed behind, while Atlantis brought home astronaut John Blaha after his 4-month stay.

On a belated space history note, 45 years ago yesterday — January 11, 1967 — the Intelsat II F-2 communications satellite launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta rocket. It was positioned over the Pacific as the first fully-operational Intelsat II platform.

F-2 was the first Intelsat II satellite over the Pacific because its predecessor, F-1, did not reach its intended orbit. F-1’s “apogee engine thrust terminated approximately 4 seconds after ignition,” stranding the spacecraft in the wrong orbit.

Interestingly, an apogee engine malfunction nearly caused the loss of the USAF’s Advanced Extreme High Frequency (AEHF) satellite after its launch in July 2010. AEHF operators and engineers figured out an innovative orbit-raising sequence that rescued the spacecraft and put it in the proper operating position last October. Well done!

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather