Tag Archives: space history

Our Geeky Church, and a Little Space History

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Before we get into today’s space history, a “quote of the day” from last night’s small group Bible study. As we were gathering, Maria grabbed one of our STAR TREK coffee mugs for Elliott, so I mentioned that ReConStruction, the North American Science Fiction Convention (NASFic) is coming to Raleigh in August. True to the nature of our science fiction church, Elliott said, “If that’s not a church trip, I don’t know what is!”

Yes, we’re geeks. But you already knew that, didn’t you?

Back to the topic at hand, an interesting launch 40 years ago in space history. On January 23, 1970, a Delta rocket out of Vandenberg AFB carried two satellites, ITOS-1 and Oscar-5.

ITOS-1 was the first prototype of the “Improved TIROS Operational System” — that is, a new and improved version of the remote sensing satellite featured in yesterday’s space history item. ITOS-1 was built “to provide improved operational infrared and visual observations of earth cloud cover for use in weather analysis and forecasting.”

Oscar-5, on the other hand, was an amateur spacecraft built by students at the University of Melbourne, Australia. It has the distinction of being the first remotely-controlled amateur micro-satellite.

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Remote Sensing, 60s- 70s-Style

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Forty-five years ago today — January 22, 1965 — the Tiros-9 satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral atop a Delta rocket.

(Tiros satellite. Lockheed Martin image from JPL Mission & Spacecraft Library. Click to enlarge.)

Tiros-9 was the first of the Television Infrared Observation Satellite (TIROS) series to be launched into a polar orbit. Intended for a sun-synchronous orbit, it ended up in a highly elliptical orbit due to a failure in the onboard guidance system. Tiros-9 was also the first meteorological satellite to operate in a “cartwheel” fashion in which the “spacecraft spin axis was maintained normal to the orbital plane” by means of electromagnetic torque between an electrical circuit loop in the vehicle and the earth’s magnetic field. Tiros-9 suffered a series of system failures and ultimately retired from service in February 1967.

Ten years after Tiros-9, and on the other side of the continent, Landsat-2 — another remote sensing spacecraft — launched from Vandenberg AFB. Landsat-2 also launched on a Delta rocket. As proof of how much had been learned about spacecraft design in the interim, Landsat-2 remained operational over three times as long as Tiros-9: it retired from service in February 1982.

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Mercury Abort Test, 50 Years Ago

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First off, thanks to everybody who commented on the space history quasi-series, whether here, on Twitter, or on Facebook. (I got no LinkedIn comments, but it isn’t quite as convenient for communicating.) I appreciate the feedback!

Now, for today’s entry …

A half-century ago today (which is hard to write because I’m getting closer to that age every day) — January 21, 1960 — NASA launched the Little Joe 1B test vehicle from Wallops Island, VA.


(Little Joe 1B launch. NASA image.)

Like the Little Joe 2 launch a few weeks before,* which I blogged about here, this test of the Mercury abort system carried a rhesus monkey. In this case, the passenger was “Miss Sam,” the mate of “Sam” who had flown on the previous launch.


(“Miss Sam” in her protective couch, prior to the Little Joe 1B launch. NASA image from Wikimedia Commons.)

“Miss Sam”‘s launch only placed her about 9 miles in altitude, however, so she did not earn her astronaut wings.

For a fascinating history of animals (especially monkeys!) in space, check out this NASA page.

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*The Little Joe launches were not in numerical order, for some reason.

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Gemini Testing

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No, it’s not testing twins or the veracity of astrological predictions: 45 years ago today — January 19, 1965 — a Titan-II rocket launched from Cape Canaveral in the second suborbital, unmanned test of the Titan launch vehicle and the Gemini spacecraft.

(Gemini-2 capsule, displayed at the Air Force Space & Missile Museum. Public domain image from Wikipedia. Click to enlarge.)

The Wikipedia entry on the Gemini-2 test flight includes some interesting facts:

  • The vehicle was used as a pathfinder for Gemini flight crew preparation
  • Shortly after launch, the mission control center lost power because the network television equipment overloaded the electrical system
  • The Gemini-2 reentry module was refurbished and launched on a Titan IIIC on November 3, 1966, as a test flight for the USAF’s Manned Orbiting Laboratory program

[BREAK, BREAK]

Out of curiosity, what do you think of these occasional space history items? I’ve had fun posting them, but I wonder if anyone else cares. If you like them, or if you don’t, let me know with a comment, an e-mail, or a note on Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn.

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Deep Impact (the Launch)

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Five years ago today — January 12, 2005 — the Deep Impact probe launched atop a Delta 2 rocket from Cape Canaveral, on its way to a rendezvous with comet Tempel 1.


(Deep Impact launch. Kennedy Space Center/Elizabeth Warner photo, from NASA/University of Maryland mission site.)

The spacecraft flew by the comet on July 4, 2005, and released an “impactor” that struck the comet to help determine its composition. (More on that when that anniversary comes around.)

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Space History Just-in-Time Pickup: Shuttle Retrieves LDEF

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Twenty years ago today — January 11, 1990 — Space Shuttle Columbia retrieved the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) as one of the key objectives of mission STS-32.

(STS-32 mission patch. NASA image. Click to enlarge.)

Columbia had launched on January 9th from the Kennedy Space Center, carrying astronauts Daniel C. Brandenstein, James D. Wetherbee, Bonnie J.Dunbar, Marsha S. Ivins, and G. David Low. The astronauts deployed the defense communications satellite Syncom IV-5 shortly after achieving orbit, then maneuvered the shuttle for the rendezvous with the LDEF.


(Long Duration Exposure Facility at the end of the shuttle’s manipulator arm. NASA image from Wikimedia Commons.)

According to this LDEF archive site,

NASA’s Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) was designed to provide long-term data on the space environment and its effects on space systems and operations….

LDEF had a nearly cylindrical structure, and its 57 experiments were mounted in 86 trays about its periphery and on the two ends. The spacecraft measured 30 feet by 14 feet and weighed ~21,500 pounds with mounted experiments, and remains one of the largest Shuttle-deployed payloads….

LDEF was deployed in orbit on April 7, 1984 by the Shuttle Challenger. The nearly circular orbit was at an altitude of 275 nautical miles and an inclination of 28.4 degrees…. LDEF remained in space for ~5.7 years and completed 32,422 Earth orbits…. It experienced one-half of a solar cycle, as it was deployed during a solar minimum and retrieved at a solar maximum.

And what made its recover “just-in-time” was the fact that it was about to fall from the sky.

… By the time LDEF was retrieved, its orbit had decayed to ~175 nautical miles and was a little more than one month away from reentering the Earth’s atmosphere.

Shuttle Columbia landed with the LDEF on January 20, 1990 at Edwards Air Force Base — where yours truly was again part of the USAF shuttle recovery team. Another good mission, another chance to dream.

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First Japanese Deep Space Mission: Halley's Comet

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Twenty-five years ago today — January 7, 1985* — an M-3SII launch vehicle took off from Japan’s Uchinoura (formerly Kagoshima) Space Center carrying the Sakigake spacecraft toward Halley’s Comet.


(Sakigake spacecraft. Image from NASA’s Space Science Data Center.)

Sakigake means “pioneer,” and this spacecraft was actually a pathfinder for the Suisei spacecraft launched eight months later.

Sakigake’s main role was to provide a distant reference point to help scientists interpret data sent from probes that flew much closer to the nucleus of the comet. Sakigake’s closest approach to comet Halley was 7 million km (about 4.4 million miles).

Additional comet encounters were planned for the Sakigake spacecraft, but it depleted its hydrazine propellant and finally telemetry from the vehicle was lost in November 1995.

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*For us here in the U.S.; it was already January 8th in Japan.

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Europa Flyby

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Ten years ago today — January 3, 2000 — the Galileo space probe made a flyby of Jupiter’s moon, Europa.

(Natural and false color images of Europa. NASA image. Click to enlarge.)

… the spacecraft flew over Jupiter’s icy moon Europa on Monday morning, January 3, at an altitude of 351 kilometers (218 miles). Galileo then performed observations of three of Jupiter’s smaller moons — Amalthea, Thebe and Metis — at 7:30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time on Monday. The encounter was capped off with several observations of Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io at about 4 a.m. PST Tuesday, January 4, 2000.

The Galileo mission was originally supposed to end in December 1997, but was extended twice. The mission finally ended with a descent into Jupiter’s atmosphere in September 2003. Kudos to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for another excellent mission!

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A Little Christmas Space History

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Merry Christmas!

Spacecraft don’t celebrate Christmas (so far as we know), and the laws of motion don’t, either. So it happened that five years ago today — December 25, 2004 — the European Space Agency’s Huygens probe was at the right point in its journey to detach from the Cassini spacecraft and head toward Saturn’s moon, Titan. The Huygens probe landed on Titan on January 14, 2005.

It’s interesting to me that the Cassini spacecraft, which carried Huygens to its rendezvous with Titan and has returned spectacular images of Saturn for the last five years, was launched from Cape Canaveral on a Titan-IVB rocket.

(Cassini-Huygens launch, October 15, 1997. NASA image. Click to enlarge.)

I remember it well; before it was launched, some groups protested because of the radioactive plutonium in Cassini’s radioisotope thermal generators (as noted in this CNN story). Kudos to my old compadres on the Titan team for that successful launch!

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