Tag Archives: launch

Space History at Two of My Duty Stations

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Forty years ago today — October 14, 1970 — test pilot John A. Manke flew the X-24A lifting body on its first supersonic flight over Edwards AFB.


(X-24A on the lakebed at Edwards AFB. NASA image.)

The X-24A was one of several lifting bodies used to study Space Shuttle flight characteristics.

And 45 years ago today, in 1965, the second Orbiting Geophysical Observatory — OGO-2 — was launched by a Thor rocket from Vandenberg AFB. It was the first OGO launch from Vandy, and was placed in a polar orbit.

I feel privileged, and somewhat awed, to have served (and done some neat things) at both of those bases.

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Two Taikonauts in Space

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Five years ago today — October 12, 2005 — the People’s Republic of China launched the Shenzhou-6 mission on a Long March 2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.


(Shenzhou-6 launch. Public-domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

The Shenzhou-6 (“Divine Ship”) spacecraft carried taikonauts Fèi Jùnlóng and Niè Hǎishèng into orbit, making this China’s first two-man space mission. The pair returned to Earth on October 16.

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Building the Space Station, Bit By Bit

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Ten years ago today — October 11, 2000 — the Space Shuttle Discovery launched from the Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-92, en route to the International Space Station.


(Z1 truss with communications antenna extended. Still image from NASA video.)

STS-92 was also known as space station assembly flight ISS-05-3A. U.S. astronauts Brian Duffy, Pamela A. Melroy, Leroy Chiao, Peter J.K. Wisoff, Michael Lopez-Alegria, and William S. McArthur, along with Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, spent 12 days in space, about half of which involved adding the Z1 Integrated Truss and the third Pressurized Mating Adapter (PMA-3) to the space station.

The astronauts completed four EVAs during the mission:

  • EVA #1: 6-hours, 28-minutes — connection of electrical umbilicals to provide power to heaters and conduits located on the Z1 Truss; relocation and deployment of two communication antenna assemblies; and installation of a toolbox for use during on-orbit construction.
  • EVA #2: 7-hours, 7-minutes — attachment of the PMA 3 to the ISS and preparation of the Z1 Truss for future installation of the solar arrays that will be delivered aboard STS-97 in late November.
  • EVA #3: 6-hours, 48-minutes — installation of two DC-to-DC converter units atop the Z1 Truss for conversion of electricity generated by the solar arrays to the proper voltage.
  • EVA #4: 6-hours, 56 minutes — testing of the manual berthing mechanism; deployment of a tray that will be used to provide power to the U.S. Lab; and removal of a grapple fixture from the Z1 Truss. Two small rescue backpacks that could enable a drifting astronaut to regain the safety of the spacecraft were also tested.

The image below shows astronauts testing the SAFER rescue backpack.


(Astronauts Wisoff and Lopez-Alegria during the final of four STS-92 space walks. Still image from NASA video.)

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Pegasus Launches HETE

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Ten years ago today — October 9, 2000 — a Pegasus rocket launched the High Energy Transient Explorer (HETE 2) over the Kwajalein Missile Range in the Marshall Islands.


(Front view of the HETE-2 spacecraft mounted on the Pegasus rocket, before shroud installation. NASA image.)

Including an array of instruments from the U.S., France, and Japan, HETE-2 was designed to investigate cosmic gamma-ray bursts, “the biggest explosions since the Big Bang” according to this press release. HETE discovered that

The distinctive signature [of a short gamma-ray burst] is that of two neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole merging, followed by a colossal explosion.

You can read more about the HETE mission on this NASA page and this MIT page.

The first HETE spacecraft had been placed in orbit by a Pegasus rocket on November 4, 1996, but it did not separate from the third stage and so was unable to perform its mission. The Pegasus for this mission originated out of Vandenberg AFB and was launched over Kwajalein from its L-1011 carrier aircraft.

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Ulysses Launched

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Twenty years ago today — October 6, 1990 — the Space Shuttle Discovery launched from the Kennedy Space Center on its mission to deploy the Ulysses spacecraft.


(Ulysses spacecraft after its release from the shuttle cargo bay. NASA image.)

STS-41 astronauts Richard N. Richards, Robert O. Cabana, William M. Shepherd, Bruce E. Melnick, and Thomas Akers successfully released the joint NASA-European Space Agency payload and its two upper stage boosters. This mission was the first to require both an Inertial Upper Stage and a Payload Assist Module, because of the need to send the Ulysses craft out of the plane of the ecliptic.

Ulysses first traveled toward Jupiter, where a gravity-assist maneuver in February 1992 helped put the spacecraft into its final out-of-ecliptic solar orbit. Desiged to last only 5 years, Ulysses actually operated for over 18, studying the polar regions of the sun during both solar minimum and solar maximum conditions. Ulysses operations ended on June 30, 2009.

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First Flight for Shuttle ATLANTIS, and the First Repeater Satellite

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Twenty-five years ago today — October 4, 1985 — the Space Shuttle Atlantis was in orbit on its maiden flight.


(First launch of the Shuttle Atlantis, October 3, 1985. NASA image.)

Atlantis actually launched from the Kennedy Space Center 25 years ago yesterday on mission 51J. This first mission was a DoD mission, in which astronauts Karol J. Bobko, Ronald J. Grabe, Robert A. Stewart, David C. Hilmers and William A. Pailes deployed what was later revealed to be a pair of Defense Satellite Communication System (DSCS, pronounced “discus”) satellites.

[BREAK, BREAK]

Also on this date, but twice as long ago — October 4, 1960 — the world’s first repeater satellite, Courier-1B, was launched from Cape Canaveral on a Thor “Ablestar” rocket. The first Courier satellite had been lost due to a launch vehicle failure. For more on the Courier experimental communication satellite, see this article.

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A Landmark Day for Space Robots

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Forty years ago today — September 12, 1970 — the Soviet Union launched the first fully-robotic mission to retrieve a sample from a celestial body and return it to the Earth.


(Luna-16. NASA image.)

Luna-16 launched on a Proton-K rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. It landed on the Moon and collected its sample on the 20th of September. The next day, it launched its return package, which parachuted to a safe landing in Kazakhstan on the 24th.

The United States had already carried out two Lunar sample return missions, Apollo-11 and Apollo-12. Luna-16 marked the first time a sample return mission was accomplished remotely, by a robotic system.

For more on the Luna-16 mission, see this NASA solar system exploration page.

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Viking-2, and Star Trek

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Thirty-five years ago today — September 9, 1975 — the Viking-2 orbiter and lander were launched on their way to Mars by a Titan-IIIE booster out of Cape Canaveral.


(First color image of Utopia Planitia taken by the Viking-2 lander. NASA image.)

The first Viking lander had been launched a few weeks earlier, as noted in this blog post.

Viking-2 landed about a year after launch at Utopia Planitia. Fans of many Star Trek iterations will recognize Utopia Planitia as the place starships are built — with facilities on planet and in orbit above. For more information on the science fictional Utopia Planitia Shipyard, try this Memory Alpha page or this starship guide.

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Atlantis in Orbit: Prepping the ISS

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Ten years ago today — September 8, 2000 — the Space Shuttle Atlantis launched from the Kennedy Space Center on a mission to prepare the International Space Station to receive its first crew.


(STS-106 launch. NASA image.)

STS-106 carried astronauts Terrence W. Wilcutt, Scott D. Altman, Daniel C. Burbank, Edward T. Lu, and Richard A. Mastracchio, along with cosmonauts Yuri I. Malenchenko and Boris V. Morukov, on an 11-day mission to the nascent space station. They unloaded supplies; routed and connected power, data, and communications lines; installed equipment; and boosted the station to a higher orbit.

In other space history, on this date a half-century ago, President Eisenhower and Mrs. George C. Marshall dedicated the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

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Shuttle Endeavour, Two For Two

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Fifteen years ago today — September 7, 1995 — the Space Shuttle Endeavour launched from the Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-69.


(Close-up of STS-69 launch. NASA image.)

STS-69‘s crew — David M. Walker, Kenneth D. Cockrell, James S. Voss, James H. Newman, and Michael L. Gernhardt — deployed and retrieved two satellites, the first time that happened on the same mission.

The first satellite deployed and recovered was SPARTAN-201 number three, or 201-03, a small satellite that studied the sun’s outer atmosphere, and especially its transition into the solar wind. This was the third of four planned flights for the SPARTAN spacecraft.

The second spacecraft the STS-69 crew deployed was the Wake Shield Facility-2, a stainless steel disk which produced in its wake an “ultravacuum” environment. In that extreme vacuum, NASA grew thin films of material to study space-based production techniques and results. WSF-2 was, as its name suggests, the second flight of the WSF; it was also the first spacecraft to use its own cold gas nitrogen thruster to maneuver itself away from the Shuttle, rather than the Shuttle moving away from it.

The Endeavour crew spent 10 days in space before landing safely on runway 33 at KSC.

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