Tag Archives: launch

First Woman in Space: Valentina Tereshkova’s Flight

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Fifty years ago today — June 16, 1963 — Vostok 6 carried Soviet cosmonaut Valentina V. Tereshkova to orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.


(Valentina Tereshkova. Image from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.)

As noted, Tereshkova was the first woman in space. The Vostok 6 mission was the last in the Soviet Union’s first series of manned spaceflights, and lasted for three days.

Tereshkova’s flight was concurrent with Vostok 5, which had launched two days earlier carrying cosmonaut Valery F. Bykovsky. The two spacecraft orbited together and maintained radio communications with each other. Both spacecraft de-orbited on June 19th. Tereshkova landed northeast of Karaganda, Kazakhstan, after completing 48 orbits; Bykovsky landed northwest of Karaganda after completing 81 orbits and “[setting] a Soviet manned duration record of 119 hr 6 min.”

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Pioneer Leaves the Solar System

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Thirty years ago today — June 13, 1983 — the Pioneer 10 spacecraft left the solar system, becoming the first man-made object to pass beyond the farthest planet from the Sun.


(Pioneer. NASA image.)

At the time, Pluto was still considered a planet but its eccentric orbit had it inside the orbit of Neptune. So when Pioneer 10 passed beyond Neptune’s orbit, it became the first spacecraft to travel farther from the sun than our system’s planets.

In other space history, 5 years ago this week* — on June 11, 2008 — the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta-II rocket. Originally called the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, Fermi was designed to conduct a sky survey of gamma ray sources. Its mission objectives were to

(1) explore the most extreme environments in the universe;
(2) search for signs of new laws of physics and understand the composition of dark matter;
(3) study the acceleration of relativistic velocity jets of material by black holes;
(4) detect and collect data on gamma-ray bursts; and,
(5) help gain a better understanding of other cosmic phenomena, such as solar flares, pulsars, and the origin of cosmic rays.

Fermi is still operating, and you can learn more about it and its discoveries here.

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*Missed posting this on the actual anniversary because of problems accessing the National Space Science Data Center.

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The Spirit Rover Begins Its Martian Journey

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Ten years ago today — June 10, 2003 — a Delta 2 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral carrying Mars Exploration Rover A, or “Spirit.”


(“Spirit” Mars Exploration Rover. NASA image.)

Spirit was one of two rovers designed to traverse the Martian surface to search for evidence of life, characterize the Martian climate and geology, and improve our understanding of Mars in advance of sending people to explore. Spirit’s twin, named “Opportunity,” launched a month later. Their mission’s scientific objectives were to:

1) search for and characterize a variety of rocks and soils that hold clues to past water activity,
2) determine the distribution and composition of minerals, rocks, and soils surrounding the landing sites,
3) determine what geologic processes have shaped the local terrain and influenced the chemistry,
4) perform “ground truth” of surface observations made by Mars orbiter instruments,
5) search for iron-bearing minerals, identify and quantify relative amounts of specific mineral types that contain water or were formed in water,
6) characterize the mineralogy and textures of rocks and soils and determine the processes that created them, and
7) search for geological clues to the environmental conditions that existed when liquid water was present and assess whether those environments were conducive to life.

The rovers landed successfully on Mars in January 2004. They originally were only supposed to operate for 90 Martian days (a little over 92 Earth days), but Spirit operated until March 2010 and Opportunity is still going.

In other space history …

The same day Spirit launched, Sea Launch placed the Thuraya 2 communications satellite in orbit from the Odyssey platform. Thuraya 2 is owned by the United Arab Emitrates, and provides service to the Middle East, India, etc., from geostationary orbit.*

And on this date 40 years ago, the Radio Astronomy Explorer B — also known as Explorer 49 — launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta rocket. Its sister spacecraft, RAE-A (or Explorer 38), had been launched in July 1968. RAE-B conducted radio atronomy from an orbit around the Moon, and operated until 1977.

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*Noted primarily because I like Sea Launch, having gone on one of their launch campaigns.

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Venera 16

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Thirty years ago today — June 7, 1983, UTC — the USSR launched the second of the paired Venera 15 and 16 orbiters from the Baikonur Cosmodrome atop a Proton K booster.


(Venera 15/16 model. Image from the National Space Science Data Center.)

Like its identical sister ship, Venera 16 used a side-scanning synthetic aperture radar to study the surface of Venus. Venera 16 was launched a few days after Venera 15, and the two spacecraft entered orbit around Venus a day apart in October 1983. Their mapping mission lasted until July 1984.

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Last Shuttle-Mir Flight, and Two Planetary Missions

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Fifteen years ago today — June 2, 1988 — the Space Shuttle Discovery launched from Kennedy Space Center on the final Shuttle/Mir mission.


(STS-91 rolling out to the launch complex. NASA image.)

STS-91 astronauts Charles J. Precourt, Dominic L. Pudwill Gorie, Wendy B. Lawrence, Franklin R. Chang-Diaz, and Janet L. Kavandi, along with Russian cosmonaut Valery Victorovitch Ryumin, docked with the Mir space station on June 4th, marking the ninth time a shuttle had docked with the Russian station (but the first for Discovery). They transferred water and other supplies to the station, conducted a series of experiments, and returned astronaut Andrew Thomas to Earth after he spent 130 days on Mir.

In other space history …

On this date 30 years ago, the Venera 15 radar mapping spacecraft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on a Proton K rocket. Its sister ship, Venera 16, launched a few days later. Venera 15 entered orbit around Venus on October 10, 1983, and operated until July 1984.

And 10 years ago today, the European Space Agency launched the Mars Express mission on a Soyuz-Fregat rocket out of Baikonur. The spacecraft arrived at Mars in December 2003 and released the “Beagle 2” lander, which unfortunately was lost. Mars Express itself continues to study the red planet from orbit.

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For anyone who cares, today’s space history post was delayed because the National Space Science Data Center’s catalog of spacecraft data has been balky lately.

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Construction and Plumbing, in Space

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Five years ago today — June 1, 2008 — the Space Shuttle Discovery was in orbit on a mission to the International Space Station, having launched from the Kennedy Space Center 5 years ago yesterday.*


(The Kibo module, adjacent to one of the ISS trusses. NASA image.)

The STS-124 crew — US astronauts Mark E. Kelly, Kenneth T. Ham, Karen L. Nyberg, Ronald J. Garan, Michael E. Fossum, Gregory E. Chamitoff, and Garrett E. Reisman, and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide — spent almost two weeks in space, primarily installing the second segment of Japan’s “Kibo” laboratory module. In addition, they also repaired the toilet in the Zvezda module … for which, I’m sure, the ISS crew was grateful.

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*Sorry, I was traveling and busy at the convention yesterday.

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EXOSAT

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Thirty years ago today — May 26, 1983 — the European X-ray Observatory Satellite was launched from Vandenberg AFB on a Delta rocket.


(EXOSAT. NASA image.)

EXOSAT was built to study cosmic X-ray sources from a highly eccentric orbit. The satellite operated until April 1986 and “made 1780 observations of a wide variety of objects, including active galactic nuclei, stellar coronae, cataclysmic variables, white dwarfs, X-ray binaries, clusters of galaxies, and supernova remnants,” according to this European Space Agency page.

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Pioneer Venus

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Thirty-five years ago today — May 20, 1978 — Pioneer Venus launched from Cape Canaveral atop an Atlas Centaur rocket.


(Artist’s conception of the Pioneer Venus Orbiter. NASA image.)

The Pioneer Venus Orbiter was designed to study Venusian from orbit, and was followed about three months later by a second spacecraft, the “Multiprobe,” which carried small probes to be dropped into the Venusian atmosphere.

The Orbiter arrived at Venus on December 4, 1978, and continued operating until its fuel ran out, it dropped out of orbit, and burned up in October 1992. During its operational life, the Orbiter observed Comet Halley when it was not visible from Earth, became the first spacecraft to map the surface of Venus, and

measured the detailed structure of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere of Venus, investigated the interaction of the solar wind with the ionosphere and the magnetic field in the vicinity of Venus, determined the characteristics of the atmosphere and surface of Venus on a planetary scale, determined the planet’s gravitational field harmonics from perturbations of the spacecraft orbit, and detected gamma-ray bursts.

You can read more on this Pioneer Venus page and also on this overview page.

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The Loss of Nimbus-B … and Recovery of Its Radioactive Power Source

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Forty-five years ago today — May 18, 1968 — a Thor-Agena rocket launched from Vandenberg AFB, carrying the Nimbus-B satellite. Unfortunately, a problem with the launch vehicle’s guidance system caused the rocket to veer off-course, and it had to be destroyed by Range Safety.


(The Nimbus B RTG fuel containers on the seafloor. NASA image.)

Nimbus-B was a research-and-development weather satellite, with a number of instruments and experimental packages:

(1) a satellite infrared spectrometer (SIRS) for determining the [vertical] temperature profiles of the atmosphere,
(2) an infrared interferometer spectrometer (IRIS) for measuring the emission spectra of the earth-atmosphere system,
(3) both high- and medium-resolution infrared radiometers (HRIR and MRIR) for yielding information on the distribution and intensity of infrared radiation emitted and reflected by the earth and its atmosphere,
(4) a monitor of ultraviolet solar energy (MUSE) for detecting solar UV radiation,
(5) an image dissector camera system (IDCS) for providing daytime cloudcover pictures in both real-time mode, using the real-time transmission system (RTTS), and tape recorder mode, using the high data rate storage system (DHRSS),
(6) a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG), SNAP-19, to assess the operational capability of radioisotope power for space applications, and
(7) an interrogation, recording, and location system (IRLS) designed to locate, interrogate, record, and retransmit meteorological data from remote collection stations.

When the spacecraft ended up the ocean, that item number 6 became a prime concern. But according to this page on radioisotope power systems, everything functioned as designed and the SNAP-19 generator’s plutonium fuel remained intact and protected. In fact, the plutonium was recovered from the ocean floor and eventually used to power the Nimbus-III satellite.

Finally, on a personal note, this reminds me of the loss of another rocket, 20 years ago this fall, for which I ran the maritime search-and-salvage operation. But that will be the subject of another post when its anniversary date rolls around.

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Last Mercury Mission: the Flight of ‘Faith 7’

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Fifty years ago today — May 15, 1963 — L. Gordon Cooper, Jr., launched from Cape Canaveral on the final manned mission of the Mercury program.


(Mercury/Atlas-9. NASA image.)

Riding the “Faith 7” capsule for mission Mercury/Atlas-9, Cooper became the first US astronaut to spend more than 24 hours in space. This mission was also the first US spaceflight to include a live TV broadcast.

Because of a suspected malfunction in the automatic reentry system, Cooper also became the first astronaut to use only the manual reentry mode. He initiated reentry after 22 orbits, and splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean near Midway Island after spending about 34 hours in orbit.

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