Tag Archives: space history

Space History: Big Joe 1 and STS-64

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Fifty years ago today — September 9, 1959 — the Mercury capsule test “Big Joe 1” launched from Cape Canaveral on an Atlas rocket. The booster operated nominally but its two outboard engines didn’t separate as planned, which left the payload 500 miles short of the predicted impact point; the overall test flight was still considered a success.

(Big Joe launch vehicle. Click to enlarge. USAF photo from the Johnson Space Center image collection.)

And fifteen years ago today, in 1994, Richard N. Richards, L. Blaine Hammond, Jr., Jerry M. Linenger, Susan J. Helms, Carl J. Meade, and Mark C. Lee launched from the Kennedy Space Center aboard Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-64.


(STS-64 mission patch, from NASA.)

The STS-64 mission was the first flight of the LIDAR (i.e., light detection and ranging, like radar but with lasers instead of radio) In-Space Technology Experiment, or “LITE.” Astronauts Lee and Meade accomplished the first untethered U.S. space walk in 10 years.

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Pioneer-11's Saturnian Encounter — PLUS, A Scavenger Hunt

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Thirty years ago today — September 1, 1979 — Pioneer 11 became the first spacecraft to fly by Saturn. It flew past Saturn’s rings, passing 13,000 miles above the planet’s cloud tops.


(Pioneer-11 image of Saturn during its approach to the planet on August 26, 1979, from a distance of 1,768,422 miles. Saturn’s moon Titan is visible in the upper left. NASA image.)

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Dragon*Con is coming!

For those of you who may be interested, Anthology Builder is sponsoring a scavenger hunt at the con. Nancy Fulda, the founder and high potentate of Anthology Builder — where, as the name implies, you can build your own anthology of (mostly science fiction and fantasy) short stories — produced a series of badges which con-goers can collect and display to win a free anthology. Details of the scavenger hunt are on this page, and here’s the badge for yours truly — not sure why the first version stopped working —

(Click to enlarge.)

— made to come as close as possible to the grandmother who is the lead character in “The Rocket Seamstress,” my story on the site.

So if you’re going to Dragon*Con, look for the badges … and if you’re not, pop on over and see all the stories that are available on Anthology Builder.

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Space History: First Flight of Shuttle Discovery

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Twenty-five years ago today — August 30, 1984 — the Space Shuttle Discovery launched from Kennedy Space Center on its maiden voyage.


(STS-41D launch. NASA image.)

Astronauts Henry W. Hartsfield, Jr., Michael L. Coats, Judith A. Resnik, Steven A. Hawley, Richard M. Mullane, and Charles D. Walker made up the crew of STS-41D, which was the first mission on which three separate satellites were deployed (SBS-D, Syncom IV-2, and Telstar 3-C).


(STS-41D mission patch. NASA image.)

The mission also carried an experimental solar wing with different types of solar cells that deployed to its full size (102 feet x 13 feet) several times to demonstrate large lightweight solar arrays — not unlike those currently on the International Space Station.

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Nimbus-1 Weather Satellite: From Launch to STAR TREK

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Forty-five years ago today — August 28, 1964 — the Nimbus-1 satellite, “the first in a series of second-generation meteorological research-and-development satellites,” launched from Vandenberg AFB on a Thor-Agena rocket.


(Nimbus Satellite Diagram, from www.ucsb.edu)

According to the National Space Science Data Center,

a short second-stage burn resulted in an unplanned eccentric orbit. Otherwise, the spacecraft and its experiments operated successfully until September 22, 1964. The solar paddles became locked in position, resulting in inadequate electrical power to continue operations.

Nevertheless, Nimbus-1 produced the first nighttime cloud-cover images from space and was followed by six more satellites in the Nimbus series.

So where does STAR TREK come in? According to Memory Alpha, a diagram of Nimbus-1 in its polar orbit was part of the data accessed by the Talosians when they scanned the Enterprise‘s data banks in the original pilot episode “The Cage.”

Science fact meets science fiction … I like it.

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Space History: Voyager-2 at Neptune

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Twenty years ago today — August 25, 1989 — the Voyager-2 spacecraft made its closest approach to the planet Neptune. It was the first man-made craft to visit the distant planet.

Passing about 4,950 kilometers (3,000 miles) above Neptune’s north pole, Voyager 2 made its closest approach to any planet since leaving Earth 12 years ago. Five hours later, Voyager 2 passed about 40,000 kilometers (25,000 miles) from Neptune’s largest moon, Triton, the last solid body the spacecraft will have an opportunity to study.

You can read more about Voyager’s encounter with Neptune on this NASA page.

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Speaking of space history, I recently added a new history section to the North Carolina Aerospace Initiative web site. It’s part of our “aerospace education” function, and as we add to it I hope teachers and other folks will find interesting tidbits on it. Here’s the link to the first installment: August aerospace history.

Hope you enjoy it!

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Dual-Use Space Technology in Space History

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Forty-five years ago today — August 19, 1964 — a Thor Delta rocket launched the Syncom-3 satellite out of Cape Canaveral.


(Syncom-3 satellite. Image from NASA’s Space Science Data Center.)

The rocket was the first Delta to use strap-on solid rocket motors, and the spacecraft was the first geostationary satellite. Its predecessor, Syncom-2, had been the first geosynchronous satellite, the difference being that Syncom-2’s orbit was inclined slightly with respect to the equator while Syncom-3’s orbit was more precisely equatorial. The satellite, orbiting over the Pacific, relayed live television coverage of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

The Space Science Data Center also notes that

Operations were turned over to the Department of Defense on 1 January 1965, [sic] Syncom 3 was to prove useful in the DoD’s Vietnam communications.

I find this immensely interesting, since from 2001-04 I worked in the Defense Technology Security Administration and enforced restrictions on the export of satellite and launch vehicle technology. Even back in 1964, when I was a “wee bairn,” it was clear that space technology could be dual-use: useful, that is, for civil and military purposes.

Our government seemed to forget that simple fact during the late 1980s and early 1990s, and allowed companies to export space technology a bit more freely; during that time, a few U.S. companies managed to help other countries solve technical problems that enabled them to improve their space technologies. My job at DTSA was to protect those technologies, which not only protected our military advantage but also — though the companies were loathe to admit it — protected the technological edge our U.S. corporations had built up over the years.

Now we seem to be in danger of turning the calendar back and allowing companies to be more laissez faire in exporting militarily critical technologies. The current Administration, under pressure from industry groups that would rather sell technology today even if it means giving up their technological advantage tomorrow, is considering taking satellites off of the U.S. Munitions List. (See this article from July, and this article from last Friday.)

Let me go on record as saying I think this is a bad idea. One, because we don’t need to be giving potential adversaries — or even friendly competitors — the same tools on which we may rely in a conflict. Two, because we don’t need to spare them the years of research and development it will take to catch up — which cost us billions of dollars and included many failures from which we learned valuable lessons — and thereby put them in better positions to compete with us in the future.

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Three Nations, One Space Mission: AMPTE

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Twenty-five years ago yesterday* — August 16, 1984 — a Delta rocket launched from Cape Canaveral carrying three different satellites known as the Active Magnetospheric Particle Tracer Explorers, or AMPTE. The three spacecraft were:

  • The U.S.-built Charge Composition Explorer
  • The Federal Republic of Germany’s Ion Release Module
  • And the mysteriously-named United Kingdom Satellite

One interesting feature of the mission were “active ion releases” by the German spacecraft:

two releases of clouds of lithium ions in the solar wind in front of the magnetosphere (September 11 and 20, 1984), barium “artificial comet” releases in the dawn and dusk magnetosheaths (December 27, 1984 and July 18, 1985), and two each releases of lithium and barium ions in the near magnetotail (March 21; April 11, 23; May 13, 1985)

to study the interactions between the cool injected material and the “hot, magnetized, rapidly flowing natural plasmas of the magnetosphere and solar wind.”

For more on the U.S. part of the mission, visit the AMPTE/CCE Science Data Center.

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*Yes, I realize I’m late with this space history item. Sundays are busy days for me, and yesterday was busier than usual, so I didn’t get it done. If you’re curious about why Sundays are so busy for me, I refer you to this blog entry (and especially the associated free download).

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Orbiting Solar Observatory and Conflicting Internet Sources

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Forty years ago today — August 9, 1969 — an LTTAT-Delta rocket launched from Cape Canaveral carrying the sixth Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO-6). According to the National Space Science Data Center, “OSO 6 was the sixth in a series of satellites designed to conduct solar physics experiments above the earth’s atmosphere during a complete solar cycle.” The spacecraft operated successfully until the end of 1972.

One curious thing: the first source on which I found the OSO-6 anniversary said it launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Just goes to show, you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet.

Oh, and LTTAT-Delta refers to a “long-tank thrust augmented Thor-Delta,” which started launching in 1968 and made many successful launches according to NASA.* In case you were wondering.

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*Yes, some other Internet sources contradict this. So pick the source in which you have the most trust.

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Around the World by Zeppelin — and by Shuttle

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Eighty years ago in aviation history — August 8, 1929 — the German airship Graf Zeppelin began its historic and highly publicized flight around the world.

(Photo of Graf Zeppelin in Los Angeles during the around-the-world flight. Click to enlarge. Image from www.airships.net.)

U.S. newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst paid half the cost of the flight in exchange for exclusive media rights. The first leg of the voyage took the airship from Germany to Lakehurst, New Jersey, where the official around-the-world flight would begin. That flight ended back in Lakehurst on August 29, the first passenger-carrying flight around the world, in 12 days and 11 minutes of actual flying time. For more on the Graf Zeppelin, see this airship site.

How far flight technology progressed in six decades, that 20 years ago on the same day — August 8, 1989 — the Space Shuttle Columbia would launch from the Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-28.


(STS-28 mission patch. Click to enlarge. NASA image.)

While the Graf Zeppelin had traveled a little over 21,000 miles around the world, Astronauts Brewster H. Shaw, Richard N. Richards, James C. Adamson, David C. Leestma, and Mark N. Brown traveled about 2.1 million miles in orbit around the planet. They accomplished a classified Department of Defense mission and landed at Edwards Air Force Base five days later. (I can’t remember if I saw that landing or not — it was early morning Pacific time — but I know it wasn’t one that I supported as part of the AF Flight Test Center shuttle team. But even if I didn’t see it, I’m sure I heard the double sonic boom.)

Also on this date in 1989, the European Space Agency launched the Hipparcos satellite on an Ariane rocket out of Kourou, French Guiana. Hipparcos was an “astrometry” mission, i.e., to measure the heavens. It “pinpointed the positions of more than one hundred thousand stars with high precision, and more than one million stars with lesser precision,” according to this ESA web page.

All this makes me want to go on an around-the-world journey. But where should I go?

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Space Imaging — From Explorer to Kepler

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Fifty years ago in space history — August 7, 1959 — the Explorer-6 satellite launched from Cape Canaveral on a Thor Able rocket.

(Explorer-6 satellite. Click to enlarge. NASA image.)

Explorer-6 was small and spheroidal, with four solar array “paddles,” and was launched to study space radiation, cosmic rays, and other phenomena. It also carried “a scanning device designed for photographing the earth’s cloud cover,” according to this NASA page, and sent back the first crude television images of earth from space.

And 40 years ago today — on August 7, 1969 — the Soviet Union launched the Zond-7 circumlunar spacecraft from Baikonur on a Proton-K* rocket. Zond-7 performed a lunar flyby on August 11 and returned to earth on August 14, carrying color photographs it had taken of the Earth and the Moon.

We’ve come a long way in terms of imaging technology, with the new Kepler space observatory having “captured the light of a gas giant orbiting a star over a thousand light years away.” From the Spaceflight Now story, “Kepler [was] able to detect the light of the gas giant, determine its phases and know when it had vanished from view behind its sun.” Here’s an animation showing the light curve Kepler detected and its interpretation.

Amazing.

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*It amazes me that the Proton rocket is still operating out of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, and I’m thankful that I got to see those operations.

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