You know the in-flight abort tests I mentioned for this morning? That wasn't for Starliner. That was actually for Orion. Unlike Crew Dragon and Starliner, Orion uses a traditional launch escape system, with the capsule contained in a Soyuz-style fairing. The launch escape system firing was five seconds early, because the Minotaur stages used for launch overperformed slightly. Other than that, it was supposedly a complete success. As for Starliner, it had an engine test in mid-June. But it hasn't even done its pad abort yet. Which makes me wonder what further delays Boeing could incur.
50 years ago today, the second attempt was made to launch the N1 rocket from Site 110/38, Baikonur Cosmodrome. It was a last-ditch effort to try to beat the Americans to the Moon. An unmanned Zond spacecraft was the payload, with an active escape tower. The plan was to enter lunar orbit, and photograph potential manned landing sites. The disaster began less than a second after liftoff. A piece of dried slag was ingested into the #8 engine, and it exploded. That began a fire that went straight up to the top of the rocket, setting off the launch escape system, pulling the Zond descent module away. All the engines shut down, and the rocket fell back to the pad at a 45-degree angle, having already begun pitchover, but not actually clearing the pad. The rocket crashed and exploded. The explosion destroyed Site 110/38. When ground crews were allowed back on the site half an hour after the explosion, it was still raining unignited kerosene. The force of the explosion was equivalent to as much as 3.4 kT of TNT, about 1/3 the force of the Trinity nuclear test. Some consider it the largest accidental man-made non-nuclear explosion in history. Evenso, about 85% of the kerosene was not consumed in the explosion. Though future attempts would be made anyway, the Soviet Union had lost the space race. Apollo 11's launch was less than two weeks away.
30 years ago today, Nadezhda 1 was launched atop a Kosmos-3M rocket from Site 133/3, Plesetsk Cosmodrome. Nadezhda was the latest generation of emergency beacon reception satellites under the auspices of COSPAS/SARSAT, an international consortium formed by the Soviet Union, the United States, France, and Canada in 1979, and finalized in 1988. COSPAS/SARSAT today involves many nations, including Japan and India. There is a multitude of satellites that participate in emergency beacon location, including INSAT, GOES, and ELEKTRO. They constantly monitor for all sorts of distress beacons for aircraft and ships; most notably, the EPIRB, the distress signal used by merchant ships such as fishing vessels. (Surely you've watched Deadliest Catch, right?)
31 years ago today, the Soviet Union launched Phobos 1 atop a Proton-K rocket from Site 200/40, Baikonur Cosmodrome. Contact was lost on September 2, less than 2 months after launch. How did they screw this one up? Because we know Phobos 2 at least made it to Mars. It turns out that a software update sent five days prior was bad. As a result, the RCS was shut down, and the probe's orientation was permitted to turn so that its solar panels were no longer facing the Sun, depleting its batteries. At the time of launch, Phobos 1 was the largest spacecraft ever sent on an interplanetary mission, at 6,200 kg.
The Soviet's failure on their Mars probes where an interesting contrast to the relative success they had with their Venus Venera probes.
I've made that point before. They've gotten surface probes to survive for two hours on Venus. The best they could do on Mars was one second. ******** 27 years ago today, two comsats were launched atop an Ariane 4 44L rocket from ELA-2, Guiana Space Centre. It was in the 1990s with the Ariane 4 rocket that the European Space Agency began doing standard rideshares on the Ariane 4 rocket. Typically launched with either four liquid-fuel boosters or two each liquid boosters and SRMs, it was designed for such a task. The two comsats were INSAT-2A and EUTELSAT 204.
34 years ago today, NASA attempted to launch Challenger on STS-51-F. The RSLS system issued an abort at T-3 seconds due to a coolant valve malfunction in the #2 engine. They would replace the coolant valve, and schedule the next attempt for July 26.
10 years ago today, Endeavour was launched on STS-127 from Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center. The primary payload of this mission was the Exposed Facility portion of the Kibō Japanese Experiment Module. It was attached off the starboard end of Kibō. The mission would also replace Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata with Timothy Kopra for ISS Expedition 20.
50 years ago today, Apollo 11 was launched atop a Saturn V rocket from Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center. Liftoff took place at 9:32am EDT, and all activities of launch took place nominally. The crew progression for the first Apollo "G" mission was an interesting adventure. This particular crew was originally commander Neil Armstrong, CM pilot Jim Lovell, and LM pilot Buzz Aldrin. When originally assembled in the master crew rotation set by Deke Slayton in November 1967, it was going to backup Apollo 9, and fly Apollo 12. Issues with manufacture of the Lunar Module led to the prime and backup crews of Apollo 8 and Apollo 9 swapping places. After that, the original CM pilot for Apollo 8, Michael Collins, experienced issues with his legs. He was diagnosed with a bone spur in his thoracic spine, and required surgery, He swapped places with Jim Lovell, who flew Apollo 8. Deke later gave Armstrong the option to put Lovell back on the Apollo 11 crew in Aldrin's place, due to opinions in the Astronaut Corps that Buzz was difficult to work with. Armstrong did not have those difficulties, and declined the next day. He also felt Lovell deserved his own command. He was the backup Commander of Apollo 11, meaning he was scheduled to command Apollo 14. As noted, the final crew for Apollo 11 was Commander Neil Armstrong, CM Pilot Michael Collins, and LM Pilot Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin. Armstrong sought to create an amiable working relationship for the crew, and it worked out well for them. But it was a lot more business-like than many crews before or after. Perhaps Neil felt it was necessary, given the historical gravity of the mission. TLI took place at 12:22pm EDT, toward the end of the second orbit around Earth. Half an hour later, the CSM separated, and Collins took control of command module Columbia to extract the lunar module, Eagle, from the S-IVB stage. The S-IVB stage's engine was fired one last time after extraction, propelling it to fly around the opposite side of the Moon from where the spacecraft stack would enter lunar orbit, and go into heliocentric orbit. All other lunar mission S-IVB stages would be sent to collide with the Moon. TLI was exact enough that the first scheduled mid-course correction was canceled. A total of ten different CAPCOMs would rotate in and out over the course of the mission. There was an official rotation of four CAPCOMs—Bruce McCandless, Charlie Duke, Owen Garriott, and Ron Evans—and six others who spent time backing up the prime rotation. McCandless was the CAPCOM at launch. There were also five different control crews—four shifts, and a backup for the launch shift—rotating throughout the mission. Launch was handled by the Green team, led by flight director Clifford Charlesworth.
CAPCOM Bruce McCandless made first contact of Flight Day 2 at approximately 8:22am EDT. With the news readout provided by the PAO, McCandless included the news snippet from the AP that the Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, port of entry would refuse entry to hippies that had not bathed. I'm dead serious. You can read it here. Apparently, officials in Mexico City, Acapulco, and Guadalajara were complaining about American hippies. Also, UPI quoted Vice President Spiro T. Agnew has desiring for humanity to land on Mars by the year 2000. The Nixon administration clarified that this was not an official administration position after Democrats in Congress complained. With my rare foray into politics out of the way, Flight Day 2 wasn't terribly eventful. The main event of the day was the second planned mid-course correction. MCC-2 took place around 12:42pm EDT during an anticipated comm blackout. It was a three-minute burn of the Service Module's Service Propulsion System (SPS). It was largely a pathway trim, and only changed net velocity by -3 m/s. In the afternoon, the crew took photographs of Earth as they slowed down toward their entry to the Moon's gravitational influence. The most common images of this phase were taken at a distance rage of 110,000-120,000 miles. They showed Africa, Europe, South America, and North America. Buzz unironically referred to the view as "out of this world". At about 4pm EDT, following lunch, the crew conducted several impromptu TV broadcasts. The first broadcast lasted just over 3 minutes. It was largely a test of the system, and only showed the computer readout in Columbia. It was fuzzy at times, since the high-gain antenna had not been deployed yet. The second broadcast was about 30 seconds, and briefly showed Collins. The third broadcast lasted just over 2 minutes, and was largely pointed out the front of Columbia, showing the docking target on Eagle. The fourth broadcast lasted 6 1/2 minutes, and showed all three astronauts at various points in a dry run for their planned broadcast the next day. The last main task of the day was a laser experiment. A laser on the ground was pointed at the spacecraft, and the crew just had to make sure it reached them. It was done at approximately 9pm EDT, and lasted six minutes.
On Flight Day 3, mission control first established contact with the crew around 9:40am EDT. Starting around 4:40pm EDT, the crew began transmitting color TV from the spacecraft. They would transmit for the next hour and a half, and during the broadcast they would enter Eagle for the first time. With the high-gain antenna deployed, clarity was described as unprecedented. Color TV of this quality would be the standard through the first half of the Space Shuttle program, until HDTV improvements. Well, except for Apollo 12. The crew took inventory of the equipment and paperwork for the lunar landing. MCC-3 was ultimately canceled, and added to the planned MCC-4. At 11:11pm, an hour after Mission Control ended its contact with the crew for the night, Apollo 11 entered the Moon's gravitational influence.
Apollo 11, Flight Day 4... At 6:45am EDT, Buzz began contacting mission control. Not expecting to contact the crew for another two hours, it took 8 minutes for CAPCOM Ron Evans to respond. Buzz asked about MCC-4. Ron stated it had been canceled as well, and said they'll give the crew another two hours of sleep time. ******** Bruce McCandless was back on duty as CAPCOM when the formal wakeup call came at 8:35am EDT. The morning tasks included taking down PAD notes for the initial Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI-1) burn, as well as possible abort contingencies. As the crew approached their first swing behind the Moon, they got some pictures of the Moon obscuring the Sun, and the solar corona emerging from behind the Moon's dark limb; similar to an eclipse, but with the Moon's appearance being much larger than the Sun's. The crew were given the GO for LOI-1 at 1:02pm EDT. They went behind the Moon, and lost contact with Earth as expected, 10 minutes later. The LOI-1 burn itself took place behind the Moon, and began at 1:21pm EDT. The burning of the SPS engine lasted 5 minutes, 58 seconds. Within a few minutes, the onboard systems gave the crew a read-out of their orbital parameters: perilune of 60.9 statute miles, apolune of 169.6 statute miles. It was only fractionally off the target of 61x169.2, respectively. The orbit was pretty much inclined with the Moon's Equator. Contact was re-established with Mission Control for the first orbit at 1:49pm EDT. They read out the results of LOI-1, and began making observations of the lunar surface, particularly their planned landing site at Mare Tranquilitatis. The most important feature was Mount Marilyn, a ridge 500 km due east of the planned landing site that was being used as a visual marker for the crew of Eagle to begin powered descent for landing the next day. The crew conducted several TV broadcasts during their initial orbits. On the first orbit, a total of 35 minutes of video was taken over three distinct video cuts. During LOS after the second orbit, at 5:43pm EDT, the crew conducted a 21-second burn of the SPS engine to circularize the spacecraft's orbit around the Moon (LOI-2). The result was a final orbit of 66 x 54 miles. The final orbital period was just under 2 hours. At that point, Charlie Duke took over at CAPCOM as the spacecraft re-established contact. The rest of the day would be dedicated to a final checkout of Eagle in prep for the landing the next day. They activated the LM's communications system, and Mission Control was able to receive telemetry from it. Owen Garriott took over at CAPCOM for revolution 5 and continuing to the end of the day. Communications for the day ended 5 minutes after Midnight, shortly after AOS for the sixth orbit.
The morning of Flight Day 5 began with a wake-up call at 7:05am EDT. While the landing crew were making observations of their planned landing site, CM Pilot Michael Collins took down PAD commands for a potential emergency Trans-Earth Injection (TEI) burn on the 30th orbit of the Moon. For the next two days, the flight director teams and CAPCOMs would shuffle for their assigned tasks. At 9:43am, on AOS for orbit 11, the crew was greeted by the White Team, with Flight Director Gene Kranz and CAPCOM Charlie Duke. (You didn't think Kranz was famous just for Apollo 13, did you?) On orbit 11, the crew programmed Eagle's guidance control computer for descent and landing. On orbit 12, Eagle deployed its landing legs. Commander Neil Armstrong and LM Pilot Buzz Aldrin boarded Eagle, and undocked from CSM Columbia at 1:45pm EDT, about four minutes from AOS for orbit 13. Collins monitored its maneuvers to make sure Eagle was undamaged, and the landing legs were deployed properly. Descent Orbit Insertion for Eagle took place during an LOS period at 3:10pm EDT. The burn of the LM descent stage took 29.8 seconds, and lowered its perilune to 8.5 miles. The go for powered descent was given at exactly 4pm EDT. The descent burn began at 4:05pm EDT. As the burn progressed, it was pretty clear they were a little long, estimating they would land about 3 miles downrange from their landing site. There was always going to be some margin of error. The first lunar landing was never going to be a simple affair. During descent, the guidance computer on Eagle gave the 1201 and 1202 program alarms on multiple occasions. These were executive overload errors, and meant planned program executions were delayed. Software is far above my own paygrade. I'm more of a hardware guy myself. If you want a full explanation, this is a good video on the issue by Amy Shira Teitel for her vlog, Vintage Space. They determined that the rendezvous radar switch was in the wrong position, resulting in the guidance computer trying to run commands for two different systems at once. When Eagle pitched over for landing, Armstrong saw that the planned landing site was actually strewn with boulders. He took semi-auto control and piloted Eagle to find a smooth landing point. Landing took place at 4:18pm EDT. Although it was initially believed the descent stage had 25 seconds of fuel remaining before a landing abort would've become unsafe, it was later determined that fuel sloshing was more than anticipated, and they really had 50 seconds of fuel remaining. Not long after, as Armstrong and Aldrin began to feel the 1/6th gravity of the lunar surface, the crew began preparation for their EVA. The Maroon Team, with Flight Director Milton Windler and CAPCOM Owen Garriott, took over at Mission Control. At 6:58pm EDT, Aldrin sent a message: Immediately after this, during a break in communication, Aldrin, a Presbyterian, took holy communion. After the controversy surrounding the Genesis reading during Apollo 8, he decided to do this discretely. The communion kit was provided by the pastor of his church in Webster, Texas, not far from Johnson Space Center. I will return this evening with the EVA.
Upon landing, the location where Eagle set down was declared Tranquility Base. (Actually putting it here earlier would've been redundant; it's only one of the most famous memes in human history.) At 7:45pm EDT, the EVA Flight Control crew took over: the Green Team, with Flight Director Clifford Charlesworth and CAPCOM Bruce McCandless. On-board Eagle, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were making final preparations for their EVA. They quickly determined that they needed to keep the microphones of their communications headsets (the famous "Snoopy cap") near their mouths for good communication. They sealed up their extravehicular mobility units, and vented the lunar module at 10:30pm EDT. The hatch was opened at 10:40pm. Armstrong began the descent down the ladder 10 minutes later. The descent was observed by a slow-scan TV camera mounted to an adjacent landing leg. On the way down, he uncovered a plaque attached to the descent stage. Including AD on the plaque was at the behest of President Richard Nixon. He wanted some reference to God on the plaque. Since it was an afterthought, it was incorrectly placed after the year. The first descent down the ladder took five minutes, and Armstrong stopped on the landing foot, observing up-close that the surface had the texture of a fine powder. He took his first step at 10:56pm EDT. (Armstrong swears he said "for a man". It's believed he had an accent that slurred the "a" out.) Armstrong collected his first sample seven minutes after the first step. He said the landscape was "magnificent desolation", similar to the high deserts. Aldrin followed Armstrong to the surface at 11:15pm EDT. He briefly jumped back up to the bottom rung of the ladder, confirming they could reach it. They were moving quite easily in the 1/6th gravity, throwing things easily. Aldrin tested different movement methods with the limited mobility of the EMU. Planting the flag was not an operation included in the checklists or the official plans. It was set up at 11:42pm EDT. Six minutes later, the crew took a call from President Richard Nixon. Nixon desired to make a longer speech, but for the sake of preserving their portable life support systems, he kept his words brief. Armstrong thanked him, and Nixon finished the call by saying he planned to meet them personally following their landing and recovery on the USS Hornet. With all the ceremonies done, the crew at Tranquility Base set up the Early Apollo Scientific Experiment Package. It consisted of a passive seismometer and a retroreflector. They collected a total of 21.55 kg of samples, and loaded them into Eagle. Although at times Mission Control was concerned by Armstrong's rate of activity, their metabolic effort was in general lower than anticipated, and they were granted a 15-minute extension. In the end, the EVA lasted 2 hours, 31 minutes, 40 seconds. Eagle was closed and pressurized at 1:11am EDT.
As Armstrong and Aldrin rested at Tranquility Base, CM Pilot Michael Collins orbited the Moon alone in the command module, Columbia. At times during the surface phase, he had a 13-minute window of direct contact with his crewmates as he flew over. And he always had contact through Mission Control, though on a three-second delay, around the near side. When he was behind the Moon relative to Earth, he was literally the most desolate person in the history of humanity. In his memoirs, Collins stated that he never felt fear or isolation during the landing phase of the mission. His sole concern was the possibility of having to leave his crew behind if anything happened to Eagle. As for his tasks, it was largely housekeeping duties, such as dumping excess water from the fuel cells. They were always going to produce more water than the crew would ever need. During one orbit, Mission Control noted concern about low temperatures in the cooling system; going into the dark, it could freeze. Collins cycled control from auto to manual and back, and had no further issue. ******** The lunar ascent phase brought the Black Team, with flight director Glynn Lunney and CAPCOM Ron Evans. He woke Collins up at 10:30am EDT, and Armstrong and Aldrin at 11:10am. While preparing for ascent, they found the circuit breaker for Eagle's ascent stage was damaged. Buzz had accidentally bumped into it at some point. While there was a risk they could be stranded on the surface, there were contingencies in place to work around such an issue. In the end, they didn't even get that far; a felt-tip pen was able to actuate the breaker. Eagle's ascent stage lifted off at 1:54pm EDT. Neil looked up just long enough from the instrumentation to see the flag catching the liftoff exhaust and getting knocked over. It had been planted literally right next to Eagle. Future missions would plant the flag much further from the LM. Eagle would spend two orbits pursuing Columbia, conducting several burns to circularize and trim its orbit. Docking would take place at 5:35pm EDT. It would take two hours to stow the samples collected from Tranquility Base on-board Columbia. Eagle's ascent stage was jettisoned at 7:40pm EDT. 20 minutes later, it was commanded autonomously for a short burn to ensure it was behind Columbia for Trans-Earth Injection (TEI). It was originally believed that Eagle's ascent stage would remain in orbit long enough to still be there when Apollo 12 arrived. But NASA couldn't find it in orbit afterward. Its final impact point is still unknown. With their primary mission complete, the crew was not going to sit around in lunar orbit. They left pretty much immediately. At 9:55pm, Mission Control relayed PAD entries for the TEI burn. TEI took place at 12:55am EDT, a 2 minute, 32-second firing of the SPS engine. They emerged from LOS for the last time nine minutes later, on their way home. Columbia had completed 30 orbits of the Moon.
With all the excitement of the previous two days, the astronauts on-board Columbia were permitted to get a few extra hours of sleep. Armstrong contacted Mission Control first at 12:43pm EDT. CAPCOM Bruce McCandless responded, and they began the day. The crew was told to begin charging the batteries in the command module a couple hours earlier than original planned. They would also do MCC-5, the first mid-course correction of the return trip. MCC-5 took place at approximately 4pm EDT. It was a 10.9-second burn of the thruster quads reducing the spacecraft's speed by about 1.5 m/s. Just after 9pm EDT, Apollo 11 began a TV broadcast. They took dinner during this broadcast, demonstrating to a live audience the ins and outs of actual space food. At the beginning of the broadcast, CAPCOM Charlie Duke thought they were looking at Earth, when they were actually looking at the Moon. The food for that particular meal was shrimp cocktail and smoked salmon, as well as a rehydrated drink powder, most likely Tang orange-flavored beverage. They also demonstrated more food, like ham with gelatin-coated bread. After the transmission, they replaced the carbon dioxide filters, and also replaced Aldrin's EKG leads. At 1:10am EDT, they took some preliminary PAD entries for a final RCS burn before re-entry. But there was still one more full day in space before that. Final contact of the day was shortly before 2am EDT.
CAPCOM Owen Garriott gave the wake-up call for Flight Day 8 at 12:32pm EDT. Their first note was that MCC-6 was canceled. They also took PAD info for re-entry. A news read-out from the PAO was delivered 3:10pm EDT. Among the news of the day for July 23, 1969: Infante Juan Carlos was named Generalissimo Franco's official successor. South Korea's first freeway, linking Seoul to Inchon, was to be named the Apollo Highway. Nixon had begun a round-the-world tour on Air Force One, beginning with a flight to Hawaii to connect to the USS Hornet to meet the crew. After meeting the crew, he would make stops in seven countries, including Romania. The day was spent making sure items were properly stowed for re-entry, including the over 40 pounds of lunar samples. Just after 9pm EDT, the crew conducted one more TV broadcast. Last contact was made for the day at 11:40pm EDT. The crew had just crossed 75,000 miles from Earth, and the PAO had informed them that the spacecraft had been located by the McDonald Observatory in the high deserts of western Texas.
Neil Armstrong made the first call to Mission Control at 7am EDT, with CAPCOM Ron Evans responding. Evans told him that MCC-7 was canceled, and to go back to bed. They did not go back to bed, and Evans contacted the crew again at around 7:50am EDT. The crew was within 35,000 miles of Earth at that time, moving at a speed just under 2 miles/second. The crew finished packing up, and got into their pressure suits for re-entry. At 9:50am EDT, they took additional PAD entries for the guidance computer in preparation for re-entry. The final PAD entry was taken at 11:48am EDT. Now things were going to happen real fast. The service module was jettisoned at 12:21pm EDT, the true point of no return for the mission. From that point, the command module, Columbia, had to stick the re-entry and landing. Entry guidance began at 12:37pm EDT, when the 0.05g sensor was triggered. If you recall back to Friendship 7, this is the sensor that is supposed to light when the atmosphere gets thick enough to cause enough drag to effect noticeable deceleration on the spacecraft. At atmospheric interface, Columbia's velocity had maxed out at approximately 25,000 mph. Nearly 7,000 mph more than typical LEO orbital velocity. At 12:42pm EDT, the aircraft carrier USS Hornet made visual contact with Columbia. Its drogue parachutes deployed a minute later, and the crew made contact with Mission Control through the recovery units. Main chutes deployed at 12:45pm EDT, and splashdown occurred at 12:50pm EDT. Recovery teams from nearby helicopters immediately approached the spacecraft. It initially settled on its front, with the crew sitting up relative to the surface. The rescue crews put a flotation harness to settle it on its bottom, with the crew laying on their backs. Before egress, the crew disrobed from their pressure suits, were disinfected, then put on environmental suits in case there was any risk of contamination. They were then choppered to the Hornet, and put in a quarantine van. But you already knew that. Once the crew settled in, President Richard Nixon met with them. He spoke of the well wishes sent in from all over the world, and formally invited them to the White House with their families after their quarantine period was over.
Christopher Columbus Kraft, Jr., was born on February 28, 1924, in Phoebus, Virginia, today incorporated in the independent city of Hampton. His father, who was born in 1892 and got the name for reasons that are obvious to implicate despite his family having migrated from Bavaria, hated the name. Chris would say later in life that his full name was "peculiarly appropriate". He went to Virginia Tech, and joined their Corps of Cadets, a military academy with ROTCs for all branches of service. However, he was rejected from military service during his freshman year due to burn damage suffered as a toddler. He still followed the Navy ROTC, and took advantage of the university's wartime year-round schedule to graduate with an aeronautical engineering degree at the age of 20. Out of college, he sought employment at Chance Vought--an airplane company--and the NACA. He used the NACA as an "insurance policy"; since Langley Research Center was near (well, now it's IN) his hometown, he felt it was too close to home. Just one problem; when he went to apply for Chance Vought, he forgot his birth certificate, which was required for application. Having already received a job offer from the NACA, and turned off by the bureaucratic attitude at Vought, he decided to take that job. He would spend the next decade working with the wind tunnels. The constant mathematics involved caused him a great deal of stress; in 1956, he was diagnosed with a stomach ulcer. He was considering resigning and taking a less stressful job. Then Sputnik happened. As the NACA was beginning to gear up to join the Space Race, Robert Gilruth, one of the research heads under which Chris served, invited him to join the Space Task Group. He jumped at the chance, and stuck around for the formation of NASA. Chris ended up becoming NASA's pioneer for mission planning for human spaceflight. It was his idea to have a centralized mission control center. Working to build the first mission control center for Mercury at Cape Canaveral, he single-handedly served as flight director for the first five Mercury missions, and finally brought on John Hodge as his deputy to handle the day-long Faith 7 mission. A more central Mission Control Center was opened at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas. Beginning with Gemini, Chris became the head of mission operations, and many of his assistants–such as Gene Kranz–became flight directors as they worked in shifts on the longer multi-day missions. His last mission as a flight director would be Gemini 7, and he would then focus on mission planning for Apollo. Kraft was also a heavy hand when it came to control of the mission. This resulted in both Scott Carpenter and Wally Schirra being removed from the Astronaut Corps. Chris was hoping to be a flight director for the Apollo 204 mission. That wouldn't happen, and he'd never take the flight director position again. He decided to leave the director position for the people he trained and future generations, and focused on mission planning. Kraft was one of the first to be sold on the idea of adding the C-prime lunar orbital mission for December 1968, what would become Apollo 8, and helped to get it finalized at NASA Headquarters. Chris was named the deputy director of the Manned Spacecraft Center in 1969. His active role in mission planning would diminish little by little, though his influence would spike one more time when he led a meeting of senior flight directors requested by Gene Kranz to decide the emergency plan after the Apollo 13 accident. In 1972, Chris succeeded his mentor, Robert Gilruth, as Director of the Manned Spacecraft Center. He would lead the Mission Control Center through Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz, and into the beginning of the Space Shuttle program. He finally retired from NASA in 1982. Upon retirement, Chris consulted with IBM and Rockwell. In 1994, NASA asked him to lead an independent review team to suggest improvements in managing the Space Shuttle program. Though the resulting report moved NASA to turn over Shuttle operations to the United Space Alliance, some felt his advice was tantamount to dismantling safety procedures recommended by the Rogers Commission. His report was criticized by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. Beyond that, Chris was honored many times over for his direction of the early American space program. The Mission Control Center in Houston was ultimately named after him. Craft died this Monday at his home in Houston. He was 95. He was survived by his wife and two children.
50 years ago today, NASA released a tentative schedule for the next nine potential lunar landing missions. Now that the G-type mission, Apollo 11, was done, it was full steam ahead with other mission types. They also released planned targets for each mission: Apollo 12: Oceanus Procellarum (Surveyor 3) Apollo 13: Fra Mauro Apollo 14: Censorinus Crater Apollo 15: Taurus-Littrow Apollo 16: Tycho Crater (Surveyor 7) Apollo 17: Marius Hills Apollo 18: Schroter's Valley Apollo 19: Hyginus Crater Apollo 20: Copernicus Crater 12-15 were planned as H-type missions, each with two EVA's out of the Lunar Module. The later ones would carry a hand cart for towing tools and samples. 16-20 were J-type missions, which would use the lunar rover for longer travels from the LM. The LM would also be enhanced to support three EVA's on each mission. Later shuffling would put Apollo 16 at the Descartes highlands, Apollo 18 at Copernicus, Apollo 19 at Hadley Rille, and Apollo 20 at Tycho.
56 years ago today, NASA directed Grumman to design the Lunar Excursion Module in such a way that its engine and reaction control systems could take control to ensure a safe return should the CSM's Service Propulsion System fail during the translunar phase of flight. North American at that point was designing the CSM under the assumption that Grumman was. It was really a brilliant idea. And fortunate, considering Apollo 13 would have to rely on that capability. ******** 28 years ago today, Atlantis was launched on STS-43 from Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center. The primary mission was the deployment of TDRS-E, the fourth successful satellite in the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System, beginning to provide the system with on-orbit redundancy. It was re-designated TDRS-4 upon reaching geostationary orbit. Various medical experiments were conducted during the nine-day mission, and it also tested a radiator for Space Station Freedom. The crew also sent the first e-mail from space, using Apple's AppleLink service. The mission would be the first post-Challenger mission to finish with a landing at Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility. It was also the first command for John Blaha. TDRS-4 was retired in 2011, and boosted to a graveyard orbit.
Happy 76th birthday to astronaut Michael McCulley. Born in San Diego but raised in Livingston, Tennessee, he enlisted in the Navy out of high school, serving four years on submarines. After getting a bachelor's and master's in metallurgical engineering from Purdue in 1970, he was commissioned as an officer in the Navy. He would train as a Naval aviator, with special training with the Royal Air Force in the UK. He would fly off the carriers USS Nimitz and USS Saratoga. McCulley was selected as an astronaut in 1984 on the Pilot track, making him among one of the eldest pilots at selection. He sometimes joked about carrying John Young's helmet bag. McCulley would finally get an assignment in 1989 with STS-34 on Atlantis, which was the deployment of Galileo. It would be his only mission. He retired from the Navy in 1990, and at the same time left the Astronaut Office. Instead, he would split time between Lockheed Martin and Kennedy Space Center, where he served as Deputy Launch Site Director, and later Launch Site Director. In 1996, McCulley joined United Space Alliance, becoming a Program Manager. He was named COO in 1999, then became President and CEO after the Columbia disaster. He retired from the United Space Alliance in 2007. McCulley is married, and has six children and a dozen grandchildren. He still lives in Cocoa Beach.
50 years ago today, Zond 7 was launched atop a Proton-K rocket from Site 81/23, Baikonur Cosmodrome. As usual, it was an unmanned, autonomous test flight of the cislunar L1 flight profile. It took numerous color photos of the Moon and Earth. Its closest approach to the Moon was just under 2,000 km. It landed south of Kostanay, Kazakhstan, six days after launch, following a successful skip return. The re-entry capsule is on display at Bauman University in suburban Moscow. It is said that Zond 7 was the only one of the L1 test missions that cosmonauts could've survived.
12 years ago today, Endeavour was launched on STS-118 from Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center. Its primary mission was the installation of the P5 Truss to the International Space Station. It also carried the backup of the Teacher in Space program, Barbara Morgan. But things would become a whole lot more interesting. The heat shield inspection revealed damage to the ventral side of Endeavour. It was later revealed to have been caused by a foam strike. The irony of this is that this mission was originally scheduled to be flown by Columbia. It was later determined, after careful examination, that the location of the strike was not critical, and the orbiter should be okay to return home with the crew. Post-flight inspection revealed minimal additional damage from re-entry, and the tiles were replaced. But that would hardly be the only complication to this mission.
54 years ago today, a Titan II missile silo northeast of Little Rock was undergoing maintenance. One of the civilian engineers accidentally cut a hydraulic line with an oxyacetylene torch, causing the silo's lid to shut and sparking a fire. The fire was quickly extinguished when it ran out of oxygen. There were 55 workers in the silo. Only two survived. Oddly, the fire didn't last long enough to damage the missile itself, even though it was fully fueled. Its warhead had been removed before work began, so that was never in danger.