20 years ago today, the Wide Field Infrared Explorer (WIRE) was launched on a Pegasus XL rocket released by the L-1011 Stargazer aircraft over the Pacific Ocean, having taken off originally from Vandenberg AFB. Shortly after achieving orbit, an aperture cover prematurely jettisoned, resulting in exposure of the hydrogen ice which was supposed to keep the telescope cool. The hydrogen evaporated, causing the telescope to tumble wildly. While they were able to stabilize and recover the telescope, the primary mission was an instant loss. The intended wide-field Infrared survey of the sky would have to wait for the later Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). They continued to use the telescope's star tracker to support astroseismology programs. One of its solar arrays also carried reflectors to test solar energy concentration, to improve solar panel efficiency for deeper space missions such as Rosetta, Dawn, and Juno. WIRE re-entered the atmosphere on May 10, 2011.
57 years ago today, the first Orbiting Solar Observatory probe was launched atop a Thor-Delta rocket from Pad 17A, Cape Canaveral. The Orbiting Solar Observatory was designed by Ball Brothers to observe the Sun's sunspot cycle in the X and UV spectra, and image solar flares. It was composed of a rotating "wheel" section that was spun to provide gyroscopic stability to the instruments, and a "sail" that was electrically driven against the wheel to allow stable orientation of instruments and solar panels. it was placed in a 320x340-mile circular orbit, and re-entered in October 1981.
If anyone is interested, they are preparing to air the de-orbit, re-entry, and splashdown of Crew Dragon.
8:24am EST (after re-entry ionization): Well, we can see inside the Crew Dragon again. That's a good sign. 8:41am EST: Drogue parachute deployment 8:43am EST: Main parachute deployment.
Splashdown at 8:45am EST, right on time and within sight of the recovery vessel. One fast boat is headed to the Dragon to safe it, while another is headed to grab the parachutes.
59 years ago today, Pioneer 5 was launched atop a Thor-Able rocket from Pad 17A, Cape Canaveral. It was a unique satellite design. Spin-stabilized, it carried four solar panels. It was one of the first probes intentionally launched into heliocentric orbit: Luna 1 was intended to impact the Moon. The mission was to study the interplanetary space between Earth and Venus. It entered an orbit with a perihelion of about 66 million miles. Communication was kept from the Manchester Mark I radio telescope (now the Lovell Telescope) in Hawaii, and a small array in Singapore. It kept contact for 3 1/2 months, staying in contact with Earth from a record distance of 22.5 million miles. This would emphasize the importance of the planned Deep Space Network, which would be ready for Mariner 2 in 1962.
Happy 56th birthday to Spanish astronaut Pedro Duque. Although Spain was officially isolated for most of the Cold War due to the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, unofficially military and scientific links were maintained with the United States and the growing European Community. From a military standpoint, this was seen as necessary to prevent the Soviet Union from using Spain as a foothold to potentially surround "free" Western Europe. Spain began contact with the NACA in 1951, and with NASA thereafter. They were permitted to be a charter member of ESRO, and later the European Space Agency. As for Duque, he graduated with an aeronautical engineering degree from Madrid Polytechnic in 1986, and worked with Spanish technology company PMV. Through that, he worked with ESA. In 1992, he was selected as an ESA astronaut candidate to represent Spain at NASA. He would fly on Discovery in 1998 for STS-95, part of John Glenn's Shuttle flight. In October 2003, he was placed on a taxi flight in the launch schedule re-shuffle dictated by the Columbia disaster, and went to the International Space Station aboard Soyuz TMA-3 with Expedition 8 members Alexander Kaleri and Michael Foale. He would spend a week aboard the ISS, conducting his own series of experiments referred to as the Cervantes Mission. He would return to Earth aboard Soyuz TMA-2 with Expedition 7 members Yuri Malenchenko and Ed Lu. There is a minor irony to this: before the Columbia disaster, Duque would've completed the Cervantes Mission as part of the Taxi Flight of Soyuz TMA-2, He, along with Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Oleg Kotov, would've returned to Earth aboard Soyuz TMA-1. But now he had to be part of an actual crew transfer. Duque took leave from ESA in the mid-2000s to work with Deimos Imaging on private Earth imaging satellites. He returned to ESA in 2011 and became the head of ESA's Flight Operations Office. In 2018, Duque was chosen to become Spain's Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities.
George David Low, typically known professionally by his middle name, was born on February 19, 1956, in Cleveland. A first-generation American, he was the son of eventual NASA administrator George Low, himself an immigrant from Austria. Given his father's connection to NASA, David was raised in suburban DC, and graduated from Langley High School in McLean, Virginia. He received multiple engineering degrees from Washington-Lee and Cornell Universities, and a masters in Astronautics from Stanford in 1983. Part of David's postgrad work included aeronautics research at CalTech. He was selected to NASA as an astronaut as part of Group 10 in 1984 in the mission specialist track. While also doing astronaut training, he detailed to JPL, where he helped with late design for Galileo, and also served as principal systems engineer for Mars Observer. He completed three missions: STS-32 on Columbia (Leasat 5 deployment, LDEF retrieval), STS-43 on Atlantis (TDRS-E deployment), and STS-57 on Endeavour (first SPACEHAB mission). David resigned from NASA in 1996, and joined Orbital Sciences, where he got involved with launch systems. He would be involved in early research that would lead to the Antares rocket and the Cygnus resupply spacecraft. He died of colon cancer 11 years ago today at the age of 52. He was survived by a wife and three children. The first operational Cygnus craft was named in his honor, and began a tradition of naming subsequent Cygnus vehicles after people important to spaceflight history.
30 years ago, Progress 41 was launched atop a Soyuz-U2 rocket from Site 1/5, Baikonur Cosmodrome. Among the supplies delivered to Mir were a new spectrometer and some replacement power components for malfunctioning equipment. When it was decided that Mir would be unmanned, they raised the station's orbit using Progress 41's service module engines. It undocked on April 21, but they discovered they were left without enough fuel to complete de-orbit maneuvers. It would re-enter uncontrolled four days after undocking. During launch, the fourth Buran ejection seat test was conducted.
61 years ago today, Vanguard 1 finally launched atop a Vanguard rocket from Pad 18A, Cape Canaveral. The primary mission of the small probe was to study atmospheric drag in near-Earth space. All it carried was two transmitters: a battery-powered 10-mW transmitter, and a 5-mw transmitter powered by solar cells. For as simple as it was, Vanguard 1 was the first solar-powered satellite placed in orbit. So for that, it ultimately was a pioneer. The three Vanguard satellites that made it to orbit act as a baseline for the properties of the vacuum of near-Earth space. Initially placed in a 650x4,000-km orbit, it was originally believed Vanguard 1 could remain in orbit for 2,000 years. Today, it is thought it will be up there for about 240 years. Over its first 60 years in orbit, its apogee has lowered by about 130 km, entirely by atmospheric drag. The battery-powered transmitter operated for three weeks. The solar-powered transmitter operated for over six years. It was last detected over Ecuador in May 1964. The Vanguard rocket itself was kind of a rush job, as Sputnik 1 scrambled the U.S. military, and the Navy wanted the glory for itself. It was powered by UDMH fuel, and nitric acid oxidizer. UDMH, unsymettrical dimethylhydrazine, is a derivative of hydrazine commonly used in hypergolic rockets. It's preferred straight-up in the Soviet Union, and Russia thereafter. But most hydrazine-fueled rockets in the United States use Aerozine 50, an Aerojet-proprietary 1:1 mix of UDMH with basic hydrazine. Of the 11 launch attempts for Vanguard, only three succeeded.The only American rocket with a worse launch record is the Delta III (0-for-3).
The Soviet Union was never really big on launch pad safety. That continues today, where dozens of people could be tooling around the pad up to minutes within launch. There's conflicting reports on what happened 39 years ago today at Site 43/4, Plesetsk Cosmodrome. On the pad was a Vostok-2M rocket, a descendant of the R-7 variant used for the Vostok spacecraft, carrying a Tselina-D signal intelligence (SIGINT) spacecraft. What is believed to have happened is that they needed to make a minor repair, and someone mixed up the tin solder typically used on their rockets with lead solder. Lead is far more reactive with the chemicals used in rocketry than tin is. It ended up reacting with hydrogen peroxide, melted, and fell into a tank of hydrogen peroxide. It exploded. At the time, the rocket was full of fuel. It exploded as well. 48 people were killed, and the launch pad was effectively destroyed. It wouldn't be used again for three years. It was the worst launch disaster since the Nedelin R-16 incident, and definitely the worst accident to befall the R-7 rocket series itself.
49 years ago today, the NATO 1 comsat was launched atop a Thor-Delta M rocket from Pad 17A, Cape Kennedy. The Thor-Delta M was a long-tank Thor first stage with three Castor 2 SRM's, a Delta E second stage, and a Star 37 solid upper stage. NATO 1 was the first comsat specifically for North Atlantic Treaty Organization military use. It was placed at 18°W in the mid-1970s, and closer to the U.S. during the 1980s.
48 years ago today, OPS-4788 was launched by the National Reconnaissance Office atop the first Titan 33B rocket from Pad 4W, Vandenberg AFB. OPS-4788 is believed the be the first in a series of NRO SIGINT satellites in a program referred to as "Jumpseat". Little is known about this system to this day, but it is believed to have been used to monitor Soviet ABM systems. Seven were launched. The first three, including one failure, were launched atop Titan 33B rockets. The difference between this Titan IIIB model and the original 32B was that the Agena upper stage was enclosed in the launch shroud with the payload. In previous models, only the payload would be enclosed. The remaining four would be launched by the Titan 34B, which used the stretched Titan IIIM core first stage.
******** 37 years ago today, Columbia was launched on STS-3 from Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center. The crew was commander Jack Lousma and pilot Gordon Fullerton. Ending the first year of the Space Shuttle, NASA was hoping to finally get a week-long mission out of the orbiter. But it was beginning to look like they were going to get more than they bargained for. And not because of anything that would happen on-orbit. That's because Rogers Dry Lake was no longer dry. Normally a desert, unusually wet conditions in Southern California had resulted in Edwards Air Force Base flooding. NASA decided that, instead of delaying the mission for an indeterminate amount of time, this would be a good time to test an emergency landing spot. NASA originally wanted to test the Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center. But Lousma and Fullerton, having both taken part in the Approach and Landing Tests at White Sands, felt their familiarity with landings at that location would help. Anyway, the mission was scheduled for one week, and would be testing just about ALL the platforms then planned for Shuttle use.
27 years ago today, Atlantis was launched on STS-45 from Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center. The primary mission was ATLAS-1, an exposed Spacelab experiments package designed to examine Earth's atmosphere. It carried a total of 12 experiments from the U.S., Japan, and various ESA participants. The mission was commanded by eventual NASA administrator Charles Bolden, making him the second African American Shuttle commander. It was also the final mission for Kathy Sullivan and David Leestma.
49 years ago today, NASA began the process to officially acquire the Titan IIIE rockets that would be used for the Helios and Viking programs. As NASA budgets began to be cut in the late 1960s, they looked into alternatives to their planned reusable and nuclear-powered platforms to launch more complex missions that could not be lifted by Atlas-Centaur. As the Titan III programs began, NASA contacted Martin Marietta about putting a Centaur upper stage on a Titan III rocket. The resulting rocket would become the Titan IIIE. It was essentially just the Titan IIIC, with the Transtage replaced by the liquid hydrogen-fueled Centaur upper stage. (I've described it before as a Titan IIID with a Centaur upper stage. That's just a different way to do so.) NASA and General Dynamics would work with the Air Force and Martin Marietta to install cryogenic fuel and oxidizer facilities at Pad 41, Cape Kennedy Air Force Station. Titan IIIE would also be capable of using the Star 37 solid-fuel kickmotor.
48 years ago today, final reports for Phase B of development for the Space Shuttle were submitted. There were two competing offers at the time, both two-company consortiums: Rockwell paired with General Dynamics, and McDonnell Douglas paired with Martin Marietta. Both used all-aluminum construction for their orbiters. At the time, it was a preference of the Air Force due to a titanium shortage. A titanium orbiter, while 15% lighter, was believed to cost 300% more. In retrospect, settling for aluminum construction with the orbiter is believed to be a factor in the Columbia disaster, as a titanium-based orbiter would not have been as susceptible to damage from the shielding breaches during re-entry that occurred in that mission.
47 years ago today, Venera 8 was launched atop a Molniya-M rocket from Site 31/6, Baikonur Cosmodrome. The follow-on to the successful Venera 7 lander to Venus, it would take a four-month cruise to the planet. The lander carried a refrigeration system to keep it cool at least during descent, and as noted before survived on the surface for around 50 minutes. It confirmed much of the data collected by Venera 7. In addition, it detected light levels throughout the atmosphere, determining light at the surface to be equivalent to an overcast day on Earth with 1km visibility. This would permit the carrying of cameras on the next set of Venera landers. Photometers detected basic structure for the planet's cloud layer, and determined it ended at a high altitude. A gamma ray spectrometer determined the surface geology, for at least that landing site, was similar to granite. Although it is known the bus probe carried Doppler radar, I have no information on what data it actually collected, or how long it lasted beyond the lander's mission, if it was even contacted afterward.
20 years ago today, Sea Launch conducted its first test launch. It launched a 4,500-kg boilerplate demonstrator atop a Zenit-3SL rocket from the Ocean Odyssey platform in the territorial waters of Kiribati. The nominal location of Ocean Odyssey for Sea Launch operations is on the Equator, at about 154°W. This is around 250 miles ESE of Kiritimati Island. The launch achieved a good GTO with a perigee of 400 miles and an inclination of about 1°. Its perigee was lowered by its Blok DM-SL upper stage upon completion of the test, though I have no data on whether or not it's actually re-entered. Currently, Sea Launch is in a kind of limbo. It was bought by Siberia Airlines in 2017, which formed a subsidiary called S7 Space, and rebranded Sea Launch under the S7 marque. They have also taken over Land Launch, and conducted a comsat launch for Angola last December from Baikonur. There's not much info out there, but S7 is marketing its services, and apparently is working with Gazprom to promote commercial spaceflight development in Russia and Europe. S7 Space is apparently based in Switzerland. There is a Sea Launch operation on the manifest for Q4 2019, but no information on what it will carry yet.
The second launch of Falcon Heavy is finally a go. Pending the traditional preparatory static fire a few days before, the window for ArabSat 6A atop the second Falcon Heavy rocket opens at 6:22pm EDT on Sunday, April 7. This launch has been delayed significantly, mostly because of issues with the payload. The issues caused by the failure to land the core booster on the first flight last January were actually minimal. The original plan was to re-launch the entire stack for ArabSat 6A. The boosters from the first flight were retreaded Falcon 9 Block 5 first stages; one from the Thaicom 8 launch, and the one from Dragon CRS-9. With the core lost, both the landed side boosters were retired from service. Now the rocket will launch with a fresh stack. To avoid delays to the second launch, the core booster for the next Heavy flight will also be new, while the side boosters of the ArabSat 6A launch are planned be re-used on the next Heavy flight. The second Falcon Heavy flight, which will carry a DoD test payload, is currently tentatively scheduled for June. ******** More next-gen rockets are getting ready for first flights. Ariane 6 has been given a first launch date, having secured OneWeb high-bandwidth comsats for a maiden flight currently planned for late 2020. ESA are simplifying their liquid fuel engines, Vulcain 2.1 for the first stage and Vinci for the second stage, to lower production costs. They will continue to use solid boosters, with 2- and 4-booster configurations. Airbus is also studying the reusability of SpaceX rockets for potential use in future platforms. (They kinda need to, since ESA member nations still subsidize production of Ariane 5, and they're looking to be able to end that practice with Ariane 6.) ESA is building a new launch pad at Guiana Space Centre to support Ariane 6. ******** The United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket is also prepping for its maiden launch. The Vulcan rocket is upsizing to the Ariane 5/6 size profile at an 18ft first-stage diameter, with 0-6 Northrop Grumman GEM 63XL SRMs. The first stage will be fueled by methane using the Blue Origin BE-4 engine. It will initially use the "Heavy Centaur" with two RL-10C engines for the second stage, with a potential shift to the Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage in the mid-2020s. Its first launch is currently targeting Spring 2021, though a payload isn't confirmed. They are planning to re-use the pads currently used for Atlas V: Pad 41 at Cape Canaveral, and Pad 3E at Vandenberg AFB.
71 years ago today, the Air Force and NACA attempted to conduct two powered flights of the Bell XS-1 on the same day at Edwards AFB. The first flight was the NACA flight, where XS-1 46-063 was flown by NACA pilot Howard Lilly. It reached a speed of Mach 1.1. It was his first time breaking the sound barrier, in his third flight. The second flight was an Air Force flight by Chuck Yeager aboard XS-1 46-062 Glamorous Glennis. The engine shut down shortly after ignition. Yeager jettisoned the fuel, and finished the flight as a glide test.
74 years ago today, the Nazi Vengeance Weapon forces in the Netherlands scattered, ending their operations against the UK and Belgium. The original plan was to regroup somewhere in Germany and continue to launch V-1 cruise missiles and V-2 ballistic missiles to prevent American and Soviet forces from meeting. It never happened. Most of the rocket scientists were elsewhere in Germany. Wernher and Magnus von Braun were engineering their surrenders. But not all of them escaped actual capture before then. One of the engineers, Albin Sawatzki, is believed to have died on this day. He was captured by the Americans earlier. His descendants believe to this very day that the Americans tortured and killed him. Considering what happened to the other rocket scientists that ended up in US custody, that's difficult to believe. Then again, he was the one in charge of the slave labor associated with the rocket program. So who knows? There is some ambiguity as to when exactly Sawatzki met his fate. As late as 1947, he was listed as a defendant in the Dora trial, the last of the trials associated specifically with the Dachau concentration camp.
56 years ago today, NASA entered into a contract with McDonnell for the Gemini spacecraft. The $456.6-million contract was for 13 flight-ready spacecraft, two spacecraft simulators, one docking simulator, five boilerplates, and three static test articles. Of the 13 spacecraft, only one was not flown; I believe it was given to the Air Force for training associated with the Manned Orbiting Laboratory project. Only one was destroyed; Gemini 1 was intentionally burned up on re-entry at the end of its test flight.