Ronald Erwin McNair was born on October 21, 1950, in Lake City, South Carolina. He was a brilliant student, skipping at least one grade on his way to graduating as valedictorian from Lake City Carver High School in 1967. After graduating magna cum laude from North Carolina A&T in 1971 with a degree in engineering physics, he would become a researcher in laser physics at MIT, earning his doctorate in 1976. McNair was selected among Astronaut Group 8 in 1978. He was the youngest of the three African Americans selected; Guion Bluford was eight years his senior, and Frederick Gregory was even older than that. He got the second mission assignment, flying as mission specialist aboard Challenger for STS-41-B in February 1984. An accomplished saxophonist, he got in contact with French electronica music pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre prior to his second flight, and worked on a song for his album Rendez-Vous. He was going to record a saxophone solo for the piece during that flight, and it was to be played as part of a live performance in April 1986 to honor the 150th anniversary of the city of Houston. Unfortunately, that flight was STS-51-L. For obvious reasons, it never got made. Not by McNair, at least. McNair died in the Challenger disaster. At 35, he was the youngest of that mission's victims; the only one born in the 1950s. He was survived by a wife and two children. He is entombed in a place of honor at a cemetery in his home town.
42 years ago today, the first two International Sun-Earth Explorer probes were launched atop a Delta 2914 rocket from Pad 17B, Cape Canaveral. ISEE-1 was built by NASA, and was also classified as Explorer 56. ISEE-2 was built by ESRO. The two would be placed in an extremely highly-eccentric orbit, with an apogee of over 135,000 km. Their mission was to study the interaction of the solar wind with Earth's magnetic field. They would be joined the next year by ISEE-3, which was placed at the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrangian point to study that interaction from outside. But you already knew that. Both probes would re-enter in 1987.
12 years ago today, Discovery was launched on STS-120 from Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center. The primary tasks for the mission were the installation of the Harmony node at the International Space Station, and the movement and redeploy of a solar array from the Z1 truss to the P6 truss. Harmony is essentially the central node of the American side of the ISS. It would connect both the European Columbus module (starboard) and the Japanese Kibō module (port), and also provide future docking locations for American and Japanese resupply missions (zenith and nadir). The module was connected at Destiny forward, and represented the completion of the U.S. module core of the ISS. As for the P6 solar panels, some damage was located on the array. A fourth EVA was added to repair the panels. All four EVAs were conducted by Scott Parazynski and Doug Wheelock. Also accompanying the mission were Italian ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli, and African American astronaut Stephanie Wilson. Wilson was the only astronaut from STS-120's original pre-Columbia manifest. At that time, the mission was to be flown by Atlantis. It was originally to be her first flight, but she was added to the second RTF mission, STS-121 in 2006, making this her second instead. The mission also replaced Clayton Anderson with Daniel Tani for ISS Expedition 16. And finally, as noted in the last page, Pamela Melroy became the second female Shuttle Commander on this mission.
Back when I covered the Nedelin disaster, I noted that work was no longer done at Baikonur Cosmodrome on October 24. It turns out, that wasn't entirely immediate. 56 years ago today, on the third anniversary of the R-16 rocket explosion that ultimately killed 122 people, including six high-level figures of the Soviet rocketry program, engineers were working at Site 70, Baikonur Cosmodrome, on the silo of an R-9 Desna ICBM. Desna was a kerosene-fueled ICBM, and was originally intended to be a mobile system. This was shifted to a silo-based system, and the automation at these silos was ultimately refined so that a Desna could be fueled and launched within 20 minutes. At the time of the work, an undetected leak in the engine of the missile was venting liquid oxygen. It had raised the partial pressure of oxygen in the silo by 50%. While engineers were descending on a lift into the silo, a spark from a console ignited everything flammable in the oxygen-rich air, and fire swept through the silo. The missile exploded, killing seven people and destroying the silo. It was after this incident that the Soviets decided never to work at Baikonur Cosmodrome on October 24 ever again. The Desna system was decommissioned by 1976, as was the fate of all missiles involving cryogenics. It was never considered as an orbital launch system.
22 years ago today, USA-134 was launched atop an Atlas IIA rocket from Pad 36A, Cape Canaveral. USA-134 was part of the Mark III Defense Satellite Communications System. It was the 11th launch of the system, and the second on an Atlas IIA. It was placed in a geostationary orbit. It was still operational as of 2015. Piggybacking the launch was an Air Force Academy experiment, Falcon Gold. It was a test of the use of the GPS system from heights above the GPS orbital range. Left in a GTO with a perigee of just 93 miles, it re-entered after 11 months.
56 years ago today, NASA decided not to rush to launch a manned Apollo spacecraft with the Saturn I. With the first several Saturn I launches going exceptionally well, they were considering manned spaceflight just with that rocket. The initial plan called for four manned Apollo CSMs to be launched concurrent with Project Gemini as an early test of Apollo systems. However, patience ultimately won the day. The remaining Saturn I rockets would launch Apollo boilerplates, while actual Apollo test spacecraft would wait for the Saturn IB. The original intent was for Saturn IB launches to exclusively carry operational Apollo hardware.
You want to talk about a spook? Boy, do I have one for you today. Theodore Freeman was born on February 18, 1930, in Haverford, Pennsylvania (suburban Philly). Not wanting to be tied down to the farms, he and his brother scraped money together to go on plane rides. By 16, he had his pilot's license. An honor student, he qualified academically for entry to Navy, but failed his physical because his teeth were busted playing football. He spent a year at the University of Delaware, during which he earned enough money to get his teeth fixed. He was admitted into Navy, and graduated in 1953. Ted chose to enter the Air Force upon graduation. While serving as a test pilot, he earned a master's in aeronautical engineering at Michigan in 1960. He was selected to NASA in Group 3 in 1963, and got involved in rocket development. 55 years ago today, he was flying from St. Louis to Houston after a meeting at McDonnell regarding Project Gemini. On landing approach at Ellington AFB, a goose struck the windshield of his T-38 Talon jet trainer. The goose's corpse and shards of plexiglas were fed into the jet engine. Ted ejected, but ended up ejecting horizontally. He was driven into the ground, and killed on impact. He was 34, and was the first astronaut to die while employed by NASA. (If this death's circumstances sound familiar, then you're paying attention to this thread.) His death took an even more tragic turn: his wife found out about his death when the media turned up at their house. NASA would change its protocols to ensure that, if an astronaut died outside of a mission, the family would be notified before the media could report it. Ted was survived by his wife and a daughter. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. His final rank with the Air Force was Captain. His name is on the Space Mirror Memorial at Kennedy Space Center.
Boeing just conducted its pad abort test for the CST-100 Starliner. The test was conducted from White Sands Missile Range. The abort engines in the service module were fired at 7am MST. Info from the test is forthcoming, but the capsule did separate and deploy parachutes successfully. It also jettisoned its heat shield and deployed landing cushions. It looks like the landing was okay as well. (On the video, the abort launch was 24:55, so you might want to skip to 24:40.)
The crew module landed more heavily than it did in the "artist's rendering" and I'm not sure I like how the piece under it (service module?) fell straight down and caught fire. Camera work could have been better (watching it live, may be better cameras that followed the module track better in replays).
I believe they referred to it as a service module. I don't think they were concerned with its disposition, since if this actually happened during a mission, it would take a dive into the Atlantic. What happens to a service module during an abort doesn't really matter so long as it doesn't impede the capsule. I didn't really watch the rendition of it, just the VOD of the actual test. It didn't look to be any harder than the landing of a Soyuz capsule to me. Then again, there was one huge problem: one of the three parachutes detached on deployment. While I'd imagine that one of the chutes is a contingency (funny enough, yesterday SpaceX did a test of their parachutes to make sure their contingency was good; they parachuted a load with only three of their parachutes instead of their usual four), I'd like to think that one of the parachutes detaching would be no bueno.
49 years ago today, the U.S. Air Force launched IMEWS 1, a missile defense satellite, atop a Titan IIIC rocket from Pad 40, Cape Kennedy. It was the first Titan 23C rocket, using a simplified rocket that removed features intended to permit the rocket to be man-rated for the Manned Orbiting Laboratory. The probe was intended to be placed into geoynchronous orbit. But the Transtage suffered a failure toward the end of its final burn. It was left with a perigee about 8,400 miles short. It was the 500th satellite or spacecraft placed into orbit from Cape Kennedy AFS.
52 years ago today, the cosmonauts of the Soviet space program were all in Moscow to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Soviet Union. Except for one. And, despite the desires of the program and the Politburo, it wasn't because they were in space. Pavel Popovich, the cosmonaut who flew Vostok 4, was in Romania instead. And the chief of astronaut training, Nikolai Kamanin, was not happy about it at all, even though he was on official business. Romania, at that point, was beginning to split from the Warsaw Pact. They were the only Warsaw Pact nation to support Israel in the Six-Day War five months earlier, and had actually just established diplomatic relations with West Germany. Although Romania did celebrate the Revolution, no Soviet Union flags were seen on their streets. This would only get worse as time went on. Romania's new strongman, Nicolae Ceaușescu, actually condemned Soviet intervention in the Prague Spring revolution in Czechoslovakia the next year. Desiring greater diplomatic independence, this would lead to Romania bucking the Warsaw Pact boycott of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Despite this, Romania would still be dealt in for the Intercosmos program, with Dumirtu Prunariu flying to Salyut 6 on Soyuz 40 in 1981.
12 years ago today, the final satellite of the Defense Support Program, USA-197, was launched atop a Delta IV rocket from Pad 37B, Cape Canaveral. The DSP was a program designed to detect missile launches. This satellite failed after only ten months. The program was replaced by the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS). Part of the launch was a small sub-payload designed to detect small nuclear tests, so it could specifically monitor North Korea and Iran.
Falcon 9 first stage has landed on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship – the fourth launch and landing of this booster pic.twitter.com/qQvH7pwMDO— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 11, 2019 Yesterday, SpaceX launched the first operational set of 60 Starlink satellites. In doing so, they launched, and landed, a first stage booster for the fourth time. This is the first time they've done that. First stage S/N B1048 was previously used for Iridium NEXT-7 (a 10-satellite launch), SAOCOM-1A (an Argentine resources satellite), and the Nusantara Satu/Beresheet Indonesian comsat/Israeli lunar lander rideshare. There are currently three used Falcon 9 first stages awaiting assignment (not including this one), and two awaiting launches. SpaceX is saying that they can launch a first stage booster ten times. I don't doubt that; they re-used the RS-25A Space Shuttle Main Engines more than that. As long as a rocket isn't burned to depletion, the engines will be fine. The next four-launch booster is supposed to be B1046, which is being used for the Crew Dragon in-flight abort test, hopefully some time next month. It will not be recovered.
SpaceX re-did the static test fire of the SuperDraco engines in abort mode yesterday. And this time, it actually survived! Full duration static fire test of Crew Dragon’s launch escape system complete – SpaceX and NASA teams are now reviewing test data and working toward an in-flight demonstration of Crew Dragon’s launch escape capabilities pic.twitter.com/CMHvMRBQcW— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 13, 2019 NASA and SpaceX are studying the data from the static fire. If all checks out, they will press on to the actual in-flight abort test. They are aiming for early December; some time after the launch of the CRS-19 cargo mission currently scheduled for December 4. Meanwhile, Starliner's uncrewed demo flight is currently aimed for December 17. It will be a 30-day mission, though it will only spend eight days docked with the International Space Station. Once the in-flight abort for Crew Dragon is completed to NASA's satisfaction, they will finally be able to firmly schedule the first crewed flight. NASA is beginning to lean toward making it an actual ISS crew mission.
75 years ago today, the United States Army enlisted General Electric to begin Project Hermes. Hermes was a plan to develop American-made rockets. But its genesis would start with a study of the German rocket program. Indeed, it would eventually take in the spoils of Operation Paperclip, and the ultimate Hermes rocket family would be derivatives of Wernher von Braun's A-4/V-2 rocket. The Hermes A series was essentially a downsized V-2, based on the Wasserfall cruise missile. It would have 11 launches, with only one failure, between 1950 and 1954, all from White Sands Missile Range. Hermes B was an idea for a ramjet cruise missile. It never got off the ground. Hermes C would eventually be transferred to the Redstone Arsenal itself, and evolve into the PGM-11 Redstone short-range ballistic missile.
Happy 77th birthday to former NASA astronaut Guion Bluford. Born in Philly, he graduated from the Air Force ROTC at Penn State in 1964. Trained on the F-4 Phantom II, he flew 144 combat missions over Vietnam in 1966. Afterward, he became a T-38 instructor, before training to become a squadron commander. In 1974, he earned his master's degree from the Air Force Institute of Technology, and worked at the Flight Dynamics Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton. He ended up writing several scientific papers on fluid dynamics, and got his doctorate in aerospace engineering from AFIT in 1978 with a minor in laser physics. He was selected to NASA in Astronaut Group 8, in the mission specialist track, that same year. He was in many facets of the Space Shuttle program, including the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory, and development for Canadarm. With his selection to STS-8 aboard Challenger, he became the first African American in space, operating Canadarm and the electrophoresis experiment. His second mission, again on Challenger, was STS-61-A in November 1985, the German Spacelab D-1 mission, the first eight-member Shuttle crew. His third mission, STS-39 aboard Discovery, was an unclassified DoD mission conducting various experiments for the Air Force. One of its experiments was a cryogenic infrared camera to study aurorae. His last mission was STS-53, also aboard Discovery. It was a DoD Shuttle mission, and deployed the classified USA-89 satellite with the Orbus-21 upper stage (the same one replaced on Intelsat 603). That would be the last major DoD satellite deployment from a Shuttle orbiter. Bluford retired from NASA and the Air Force (rank Colonel) in 1993. He took various research oversight jobs in the private sector, eventually becoming an executive at Northrop Grumman before becoming president of an aerospace consulting firm in 2002. Bluford is married, and has two sons.
54 years ago today, France became the third nation to develop its own orbital rocket capability. The French Armee de Terre (yes, the actual Army, not the Air Force, just like America's early rocket efforts) launched its first satellite, Asterix 1, atop a Diamant A rocket from Pad A, Interarmy Special Weapons Test Center (Centre Interarmées d'Essais d'Engins Spéciaux, or CIEES), Hammaguir, Algeria. Asterix 1 was little more than a transponder, not much different in equipment than Sputnik. The launch was more to test the Diamant system's capabilities. It was placed in a 1,700x530-km orbit, and is believed to be able to stay in orbit for centuries.
58 years ago today, North American Aviation was awarded the contract to design and produce the Apollo Command and Service Module. It was an interesting journey to get to this result. Glenn L. Martin prematurely announced that they had received the contract the previous day. This pissed off the DoD and the National Space Council, and they stripped Martin of the contract, giving it to the other finalist, North American. Analysts at the time said that Martin had undertaken the most elaborate study regimen for their design. $3 million, and six months of work, all for nothing because someone decided they needed to blab. As an aside, there is speculation that a semifinal design by General Electric may have been stolen by the Soviet Union, and may have contributed to the development of the Soyuz spacecraft. Martin would end up playing no role in the Apollo program, focusing on the Titan rocket series for the rest of the 1960s.
52 years ago today, the Saturn IB officially received its designation. When the original S-I first stage and S-IV second stage were replaced with the respective S-IB and S-IVB, the rocket was originally referred to as the "uprated Saturn I". The change was made for brevity's sake, to have a more media-friendly name to refer to it. It would ultimately only be needed for two launches in 1968.
115 years ago today, astronomer Charles Perrine discovered the largest of Jupiter's non-Galilean satellites, Himalia. That is not saying much. Its radius is about 150 km. It is the largest of Jupiter's natural satellites that orbit beyond the Galilean satellites. It has never been imaged with good clarity, not even by Galileo; the best image known of it is a speck of an image taken by Cassini that is only six pixels wide. But things got very interesting for it recently. There was a much smaller moon, Dia, that was discovered in 2000. Then, they lost track of it. Around the same time, they discovered a faint ring being formed in the path of Himalia. It was believed throughout the 2000s that Dia might've crashed into Himalia. But Dia was rediscovered in 2011, so the source of the new ring casing Himalia's orbit is currently unknown. And there really is no way of knowing if something hit Himalia, since as previously noted there's no way to get a good image of it.
21 years ago today, Endeavour was launched on STS-88 from Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center. It was the first assembly mission for the International Space Station. As part of the mission, it carried the Unity node, which would link the U.S. and Russian sides of the ISS. On the third day of the mission, the orbiter placed Unity on its SPACEHAB docking adapter. The next day, it rendezvoused with Zarya, the Functional Cargo Block, and used Canadarm to attach it to Unity. The crew would engage in three EVAs for installation of external equipment around Unity to prepare for future additions to the ISS, and to complete electrical and supply connections between it and Zarya. All three EVAs were conducted by Jerry Ross and James Newman. The crew would first enter the station six days after launch. As part of the internal work, they replaced a faulty battery on Zarya, and assembled the communications system in Unity. The mission was the fourth and last for commander Bob Cabana. It was also the fourth mission for cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, and his second aboard the Space Shuttle, though he would have two future missions to the ISS.
Happy 70th birthday to NASA astronaut Bruce Melnick. Born in NYC, but raised in Clearwater, Florida, he spent a year at Georgia Tech before switching to the Coast Guard Academy, graduating in 1972 with an engineering degree. He then got a master's in aeronautical systems from West Florida in 1975. After his postgraduate studies, Melnick took a unique position as a test pilot in the Coast Guard, testing the Eurocopter HH-65 Dolphin search-and-rescue helicopter. He would log over 5,000 hours of flight time, almost entirely in helicopters. He was selected to NASA in 1987 in the mission specialist track of Group 12, becoming the first astronaut to represent the Coast Guard. He flew on Discovery for STS-41 in 1990, the launch of Ulysses to observe the Sun's polar regions; and the maiden flight of Endeavour for STS-49 in 1992. In the latter mission, he was the only mission specialist that didn't take part in an EVA. Melnick left NASA after STS-49, and retired from the Coast Guard as a Commander. After spending a few years opening the United Space Alliance, he transferred to McDonnell Douglas, managing their operations at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral AFS. He would keep that position after they merged with Boeing, eventually rising to executive ranks with Boeing Florida. He is married, and has two children.
54 years ago today, Nikolai Kamanin, the head of cosmonaut training in the Soviet Union, lamented what he viewed as the moment when the Soviet Union was overtaken by the United States in the space race. It was Day 3 of Gemini 7, which was working to extend the spaceflight endurance record (something the Americans had already claimed with Gemini 5 four months earlier). Kamanin had said that his cosmonauts were ready for more and longer missions. But resistance to further flights of Vostok and Voskhod from officials like Dmitri Ustinov (who would later become the Soviet defense minister) resulted in the space program languishing, frustrating Kamanin and Sergei Korolev in particular. Little did Kamanin know that the biggest body blows were yet to come. At that point, Korolev had less than two months left to live. His death would prove to decapitate the effort for the next half decade.
62 years ago today, the Army Ballistic Missile Agency forward a proposal titled "A National Integrated Missile and Space Vehicle Development Program" for approval. It proposed expedited development of a large-payload rocket with launch thrust of 1.5 million pounds. The proposal would lead directly to Project Saturn. Meanwhile, the Air Force established a Directorate of Astronautics for the purposes of creating satellites and anti-missile technology. By the end of the month, establishment was paused in favor of waiting for activation of the joint Advanced Research Projects Agency. They also asked for a 50% increase in their missile systems budget for F/Y 1959 to further accelerate space research.