28 years ago today, Columbia was taken out of service for its first Orbiter Major Modification (OMM). As part of the refit, its central computer was replaced, and it was fitted with the landing drag parachute which would ultimately have its first use for the program with Endeavour's maiden flight. In addition, much of its dorsal insulation, using heavier tiles, was replaced by the Nomex felt insulation introduced on Challenger, and used extensively on Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour. Some additional structural improvements, a refit I've seen described as "Orbiter 6.0" (though I haven't found exact details), reduced Columbia's weight slightly. But as technically a prototype, it would always be the heaviest of the Space Shuttle orbiters.
26 years ago today, STS-51 handed Discovery its second pad abort. The main engines cut off on RSLS command at T-3 seconds, and the launch was promptly scrubbed. The issue was traced to a fuel flow sensor on one of the main engines. As a precaution. all three engines were replaced on the launch pad. The mission would launch exactly one month later.
51 years ago today, Chris Kraft relayed the final GO for the Apollo C-prime mission for a CSM-only lunar flight. He gave a launch date range of December 20-26, excluding Christmas Day. Checks of Block II CSMs 103 through 106 were complete. Ultimately CSM 103 would be used for the mission. NASA technicians' only concern at that point was the high-gain antenna. Kraft offered the mission to the crew led by commander Frank Borman. Borman expressed interest in the mission.
Happy 67th birthday to NASA astronaut Mark Lee. If you've followed this thread, then you may be familiar with his ex-wife. Born and raised in Viroqua, Wisconsin, he graduated from Air Force in 1974 with a civil engineering degree. After training to become a pilot, he spent nearly three years at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa. (You hear that, Karate Kid fans?) He eventually got a master's in mechanical engineering from MIT in 1980. Following that, he became a flight commander until he was selected to NASA in the mission specialist track of Group 10 in 1984. Like the others in his class, Lee would have to wait until after the Challenger disaster to get his chance to fly into space. His first mission was STS-30 aboard Atlantis, the deployment of the Magellan probe to Venus. If you want to know about his second mission, see his ex-wife's link above. As I noted there, the revelation of their marriage led to a regulation that a married couple could not fly together on the same mission in the future. His third flight was STS-64 aboard Discovery in 1994, and involved multiple experiment packages. He also took part in an EVA where they tested the SAFER jetpack. His final flight was STS-82 aboard Discovery in 1997, the second Hubble Space Telescope service mission. Paired with Steven Smith, they performed three of the five EVA's, during which they replaced two telescope components, several computer components, and the thermal insulation blankets. Lee was scheduled to take part in STS-98, the installation of the Destiny laboratory module at the ISS, in 2001. But a falling-out with Johnson Space Center leadership led to him being replaced on the mission by Robert Curbeam. He retired from NASA and the Air Force in 2001. (Note to self: do a write-up on Curbeam in March) Lee would re-marry, and had three children with his second wife. He would spend his retirement from NASA as a teacher. His family re-united with his maternal grandmother in 2006; his mother had been put up for adoption as a baby.
During the third EVA of STS-118, Rick Mastracchio and Clayton Anderson relocated several pieces of equipment delivered with the P6 Truss to be installed on the P1 Truss of the ISS, including an S-band antenna. Late in the EVA, during a routine equipment check, they discovered a puncture on one of Mastracchio's gloves. Mission Control would examine the pathways of all three EVAs to that point to determine where and when the glove was damaged. A similar cut was discovered during STS-116 in Robert Curbeam's glove; that's the whole reason the in-EVA inspections were implemented. (I swear to God, it's pure coincidence that I'm mentioning Curbeam again so soon.) This would result in the fourth EVA of the mission being delayed a day, from the 17th to the 18th.
Bernhard Robert Tessmann was born on August 15, 1912, in Zingst, Germany. Lots of his early details are lost to history. Prior to the mid-1930s, his only known connection to space was that his father was a set designer at the movie studio UFA that worked on the 1929 silent film Frau im Mond. Then he met Wernher von Braun in 1935. As luck would have it, von Braun was looking to build his rocket testing facility at nearby Peenemunde. Tessmann went to work for von Braun in 1936, helping design said testing facilities. He eventually developed an engineering interest in rockets, and worked in von Braun's wind tunnels. He also designed a possible mobile launcher for the V-2 rocket. But as World War II drew to an end, von Braun grew concerned that Adolf Hitler's scorched Earth policies would lead to the people of the rocket program being liquidated. So before he took the rest of his scientists on the run, he asked Tessmann to preserve his documents. He got three Opel trucks and loaded 14 tons of paperwork in them. The convoy drove to the Harz Mountains, and put the paperwork in a powder magazine in an abandoned iron mine. Not long after, von Braun returned with the U.S. Army to retrieve the preserved research. Tessmann was brought to America with Operation Paperclip, and become a leading research engineer at Redstone Arsenal. In 1960, he was named the Deputy Director of the Test Division at NASA's Marshall Spaceflight Center. Tessmann was among those questioned in the mid-1980s when re-evaluation of their classified histories led to several of von Braun's scientists being deported to Germany to stand trial for Nazi war crimes. He died in Huntsville on December 19, 1998, aged 86. He had raised a family there, and a music and foreign language scholarship at the University of Alabama-Huntsville bears his and his wife's names.
Barbara Morgan, maiden name Radding, was born on November 28, 1951, in Fresno, California. She got a degree in human biology from Stanford in 1973, then received her teaching certificate. She immediately went to work teaching at elementary schools in the Pacific Northwest, eventually settling in McCall, Idaho, becoming a fixture at McCall-Donnelly Elementary School. She would spend the 1978-79 school year teaching at an American school in Ecuador. In 1985, Morgan was selected to the Teacher in Space Project, and named the backup to Christa McAuliffe for STS-51-L. After the Challenger disaster, Morgan would spend the rest of the 1985-86 school year doing the media events originally intended for McAuliffe, before returning to McCall-Donnelly. The dream would not end. Morgan was compelled to try out as an actual astronaut, and in 1998, she was selected by NASA in Group 17. The Columbia disaster did not deter her from her dream. As part of STS-118, 12 years ago today, Morgan conducted a class for the Challenger Center for Space Science Education in Alexandria, Virginia. The facility was founded by Dr. June Scobee Rogers, the widow of STS-51-L Commander Dick Scobee. Morgan resigned from NASA in June 2008, and took a professorship at Boise State. Today, she is an adviser to a STEM academy in Meridian, Idaho, that bears her name. She has been honored by the National Education Association, and an elementary school in McCall, Idaho, has also been named after her.
Did you know Friendship 7 was originally supposed to be a suborbital flight? The original plan for Project Mercury was for at least three manned suborbital flights before beginning the orbital phase of the program. John Glenn was going to fly the third mission, likely as early as September 1961. But after the sinking of Liberty Bell 7, and with the Soviets having just orbited Vostok 2 with Gherman Titov for a full day, further suborbital flights were determined to be pointless—and, more bluntly, pathetic. 58 years ago today, Mercury-Redstone 5 was canceled, and Friendship 7 was moved to the first Mercury-Atlas orbital launch. It would be another six months before Glenn would get to fly due to continued issues getting the Atlas rocket ready. NASA originally purchased eight Redstone missiles for the suborbital phase of the program. Two were never used; one of them, code number MR-6, was at one point on display connected to the Sigma 7 capsule. The other unused booster, MR-4, I haven't tracked down yet, but it's likely also a museum piece. That was probably the fate of the one that failed to launch on Mercury-Redstone 1 as well.
Happy 84th birthday to NASA astronaut Dr. Franklin Story Musgrave. Born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, if there is a true polyglot in the American space program, Story would be it. I could probably list his hobbies in an entire page of this thread. But considering he ultimately became a doctor, Story was actually a high school dropout; he quit in his senior year due to a car accident that held him out from final exams. He would instead get his GED after enlisting in the Marine Corps. With rigorous study, he got degrees in math and statistics from Syracuse in 1958, just a year late. During his stay with the Marines, he was working as an electrician on the aircraft carrier USS Wasp when his brother Percy, a Naval Aviator, died after crashing on takeoff from the carrier. He was pulled under the carrier after the crash. After working briefly for Eastman Kodak, Story got an MBA from UCLA in 1959, then went to Columbia to get his MD in 1964. He did some postdoctorate fellowships with the Air Force and the National Heart Institute before he was chosen as an astronaut in the XS-11 group in 1967. Once he got astronaut-related pilot training, he caught up to his military peers in flight hours rapidly. He has 17,700 hours of flight, including 7,500 hours flying jet aircraft. Receiving a backup assignment as Science Astronaut for Skylab 2, he was the first member of the XS-11 to get a mission assignment. Having written papers associated with aerospace medicine, Story got involved in all aspects of Space Shuttle-era extravehicular activity, including designing the Shuttle Extravehicular Mobility Unit, still in use aboard the ISS today. He also help design the main orbiter airlock, and the Manned Maneuvering Unit. Story would fly six times, and be the only astronaut to fly on all five orbiters: STS-6 (1983, Challenger maiden flight, TDRS-A deployment), STS-51-F (1985, Challenger, Spacelab-2), STS-33 (1989, Discovery, DoD), STS-44 (1991, Atlantis, DoD), STS-61 (1993, Endeavour, Hubble SM1), and STS-80 (1996, Columbia, ORFEUS-SPAS II). During his career, Story took part in just short of 27 hours of EVA, including the first Shuttle-era EVA on STS-6. Not bad, considering his first flight took place when he was 48. His career was not completely free of drama. In the early 1990s, he was stalked by an infamous celebrity stalker that had also stalked David Letterman. Story retired from NASA in 1997. He is married, and has seven children, though one has died.
42 years ago today, Voyager 2 was launched atop a Titan IIIE rocket from Pad 41, Cape Canaveral, on the greatest adventure man has ever known. It was launched 2 1/2 weeks before Voyager 1. Voyager 2 would take a more leisurely route to Jupiter, reaching the planet in 23 months, as opposed to the 18 months it would take Voyager 1. This would enable Voyager 2, which was officially funded just for Jupiter and Saturn, to eventually expand its mission to Uranus and Neptune, completing the Planetary Grand Tour. In addition to the Centaur upper stage, the Voyager probes were further propelled by the Thiokol Star 37E solid-fuel kickmotor. Voyager 2 had an initial orbit with an aphelion of 6.2 astronomical units, between Jupiter and Saturn. It would achieve escape velocity on the gravity assist from the Jupiter fly-by.
55 years ago today, the last KH-5 ARGON reconnaissance satellite was launched atop a Thrust-Augmented Thor rocket from Pad 75-1-2, Vandenberg AFB. Project ARGON was a reconnaissance series more intended to assist in photographic mapmaking, and had lower-res cameras than the CORONA series. For this particular one, about 15% of the film was damaged by a solar flare late in its mission. The film capsule was jettisoned and recovered a month after launch. The satellite itself remained in orbit an additional six months for the operation of a piggybacked satellite called Starflash-1B. I have absolutely no clue was it was for.
22 years ago today, a satellite by the name of Lewis was launched atop an Athena rocket from Pad 6, Vandenberg AFB. It was the first successful launch of the Athena rocket. The payload was part of the Small Satellite Technology Initiative (SSTI). It carried two Earth-facing cameras and a small ultraviolet astronomy instrument. Two days after launch, the probe was found to be spinning abnormally. Controllers were unable to correct the issue, and the probe failed. It didn't even make its intended final orbit, a circular, 325-mile, sun-synchronous polar orbit which it was supposed to reach under its own power. It was ultimately determined that the reaction control system, derived from another probe, was not sufficiently modified for this mission. The probe re-entered five weeks after launch.
There was a bit of drama with the International Space Station this morning. Soyuz MS-14 was approaching for its docking attempt after launching two days ago. it was set to dock with the Poisk docking point. But it was unable to lock on to its Kurs targeting system. After several attempts, the docking was aborted. Several systems were removed from the spacecraft to allow for more cargo than usual to be brought to the ISS. One of those things was Toru, a backup system to Kurs that could've compensated. Roscosmos has yet to fix the issue, and the spacecraft is currently in a 48-hr holding pattern. Some confusion befell the press when NASA asked that the American crew be awakened. The abort occurred before final approach, and the ISS was not in danger. ******** Although unmanned, Soyuz MS-14 does have a "crew". Skybot F-850, which was developed under the codename FEDOR (Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research), is occupying one of the re-entry module's crew couches. It will spend a week on-board the station testing voice commands. But its primary mission is, effectively, as a crash test dummy. It will be measuring g forces from launch and re-entry. The launch forces, in particular, are of particular importance since they used a different rocket. Of course, that means it will return with Soyuz MS-14 at the end of the mission. It's hardly the first droid placed on the ISS. NASA's Robonaut2 spent seven years aboard the ISS. It returned to Earth on Dragon CRS-14 last year, and is actually planned to be re-launched soon following massive upgrades. Perhaps as early as the next Dragon or Cygnus resupply mission. If all goes well, it is hoped Skybot F-850 will someday return to the ISS on a more permanent basis. The earliest I've seen is 2021. ******** I was horrified to learn that, if the Soyuz-2.1a rocket is finally cleared for manned flights, it won't just mean the end of the Soyuz-FG rocket. It will also mean the end of Gagarin's Start. Site 31/6 is the only launch pad used for Soyuz-2 launches at Baikonur. Once Soyuz-FG is retired, Roscosmos plans to decommission Site 1/5, citing lack of funds to upgrade it for Soyuz-2. This could signal a potential shift to Vostochny Cosmodrome someday. The digital systems on Soyuz-2 allow for the rocket to actually maneuver on its own in flight. While Vostochny Site 1S, its Soyuz launch pad, is slightly above the azimuth of the ISS (51.6° for ISS, 51.8° for Site 1S), that small difference can be compensated for in the launch profile with minimal loss of capacity. This could signal a shift in the Russian manned space program as well. Vostochny Cosmodrome and Moscow are equidistant from Houston, both just under 10,000 km away. If they chose to continue cooperation with NASA, at least. That always seems to be up in the air.
When the Kvant module was launched, it was connected to a Functional Service Module (FSM), a predecessor of the Functional Cargo Block (FGB) that would be used for future Mir modules, and would be left as a whole to be the basis of the International Space Station in the form of the Zarya module. Although Kvant initially soft-docked with the aft port of the Mir core module, it was unable to hard dock. An emergency EVA discovered that a trash bag, likely left behind by Progress 28, was obstructing the docking mechanism. The second docking attempt left the FSM lacking the fuel required to de-orbit. Instead, after undocking from Kvant to reveal its own docking port, it was ordered to expend its fuel boosting itself away from Mir. It finally re-entered 31 years ago today, over a year after it was jettisoned from the station.
Happy 77th birthday to NASA astronaut John Blaha. Born in Norfolk, Virginia, he graduated from Air Force with an engineering sciences degree in 1965, and got a master's in astronautical engineering from Purdue in 1966. He then spent a lot of time in Vietnam, flying 361 combat missions with four different aircraft in the 1960s. After Vietnam, he went to the Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School, graduating in 1971. He would breach 100,000 feet altitude in one of the last flights of the NF-104 plane originally used for X-15 training. He would also spend three years assisting with aircraft testing on detail to the UK. In 1976, Blaha was assigned to Air Force HQ at the Pentagon, where he developed and presented presentations for various studies. He presented testing results, in particular, for the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle and General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon to Congress. He was selected to NASA in Group 9 in 1980 in the pilot track. He would have to wait until after the Challenger disaster for his first mission, but caught up quickly; he became one of the scant few astronauts to fly two distinct missions in the same calendar year. In February 1989, Blaha was pilot for STS-29 on Discovery, the third TDRS deployment. Then he was assigned to replace David Griggs, after his untimely death, on STS-33 in November 1989. That mission, aboard Atlantis, was a classified DoD mission; its payload, an IUS-launched satellite referred to as USA-48, is believed to have been an ELINT satellite. Blaha's first command came with STS-43 on Atlantis in 1991, which was the fourth TDRS deployment. He also commanded STS-58 on Columbia in 1993; that mission was Spacelab Life Sciences 2, a follow-on to SLS-1 with a focus on psychology. He was then asked to take on a residency for the Shuttle-Mir program. He was launched as a mission specialist on Atlantis with STS-79 in September 1996, replacing Shannon Lucid on Mir. He spent four months aboard Mir before being retrieved by Atlantis on STS-81 in January 1997, this time replaced by Jerry Linenger. Blaha retired from NASA in 1997, and took an executive role at USAA. He is married, and has three children and four grandchildren. He retired from the Air Force as a Colonel.
I was (kinda) wondering why they were using the term "unpiloted" instead of the usual "uncrewed". No-one says unmanned any more.
Technically, all Soyuz capsules are "unpiloted", and always have been. The Soviet Union was really big on autonomous flight from day one. I'm not sure modern Soyuz capsules even could be piloted by the cosmonaut.
34 years ago today, Discovery was launched on STS-51-I from Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center. The primary mission was a full slate of three comsat deployments: Aussat-1 for Australia, ASC-1 for American Satellite Company, and Leasat 4 for the DoD. The crew would then take two swings at repairing Leasat 3. The mission was complicated due to issues with an elbow joint in Discovery's Canadarm remote manipulator. But William Fisher and James van Hoften were able to repair the satellite's control lever. If you've ever noticed some 80s-era geostationary satellite deployments from Space Shuttle orbiters, you'll notice three types: Some were spun in their cargo compartment and released. (You don't need to stay on the whole video for this link; it's right at the beginning, but it's the best non-simulation video I could find) Satellites using the IUS or Transfer Orbit Stage, which used multi-axis reaction control instead of spin stabilization, were spring-loaded, and deployed with pyrotechnics. And some were slung out of their compartment like a frisbee for spin stabilization, like the Leasat comsats. In this case, a control lever was supposed to be actuated on the way out, setting off a timer to ignite its kickmotor to launch it to GTO. In the case of Leasat 3, it was found that the control lever was broken. The STS-51-I crew was able to repair it, and it later reached its final geostationary orbit. Ironically, Leasat 4 failed during testing after reaching its destination when its communications downlink cut off. This mission lasted a week.
Because I feel like it... The following quote is from Penn Jillette in the "Conspiracy Theories" episode of his contrarian TV show Penn & Teller: B***s***! about the moon landing hoax accusations: If you've ever seen that show, then you understand why it's heavily redacted. If I could find a clip of it, it would only be linked for that reason. (As for the edit, he originally said "36 years", since it was filmed in 2005.) Even Deep Throat finally spoke up eventually. Someone would've said something by now. And no, killing only Gus Grissom would not have been enough. There are plenty of other people who would've had (far more) motive to spill the beans.
18 years ago today, the first H-IIA rocket was launched from Pad Y, Tanegashima Space Center. Japan had not completed a launch with an indigenous liquid-fueled rocket in nearly two years, since the original H-II rocket suffered two straight failures in 1999. That left JAXA reeling, and sent manufacturer Mitsubishi Heavy Industries back to the drawing board. If the re-designed H-IIA had early failures, it might've resulted in Japan giving up on commercial launches for an extended period. There were two payloads: a laser-ranging experiment, and a radar-ranging experiment. Both were primarily to verify the payloads made it to their intended orbits. The laser payload was separated after the initial launch phase into a Molniya-style 12hr orbit. The radar payload was boosted a little further to an actual GTO. The launch went as planned. H-IIA originally had four different configurations. Two of them, which included smaller SRMs in addition to its usual SRBs, were later canceled, as were plans to later use liquid-fueled boosters. H-IIA has had 40 launches, with only one failure.
Okay, I'm an idiot. My little screed on the Moon hoax was done without actually looking at Encyclopedia Astronautica, and I missed something very good. My bad. The gentleman standing to the right with the crew of Apollo 11 is Gunter Wendt. He was born on August 28, 1924, in Berlin. Although some believe he came to America with Operation Paperclip, he in fact did not. He was into aircraft, and was an apprentice aircraft engineer in the Luftwaffe during World War II. With engineering jobs lacking in post-war Germany, he decided to emigrate to the U.S. in 1949, joining his divorced father, who had escaped the war. Wendt got a start as a truck mechanic and, even though he was new to automotive, swiftly became a shop supervisor. In 1955, he finally got an aerospace job with McDonnell. But he wouldn't be working with planes for long. As they got the contracts for the Mercury spacecraft, Wendt found his calling with launch pad preparations. He tucked every crew for Mercury and Gemini into their capsules before launch. When closeout shifted to North American for the Apollo program, Wendt moved on to other McDonnell projects at Cape Kennedy AFS. But after the Apollo 204 fire, the astronauts felt the void left by Wendt. (Some of the astronauts felt Wendt could've prevented the disaster. For what it's worth, Wendt disagreed.) Before Apollo 7, Wally Schirra demanded that North American hire Wendt to oversee launch closeout. North American hired him, and he quickly re-took the title of Pad Leader. Wendt would be personally involved in every manned mission through Apollo-Soyuz. He would take a more supervisory role with Rockwell at Kennedy Space Center going into the Space Shuttle program before retiring in 1989. In retirement, Wendt frequently served as a technical consultant on film and TV projects regarding spaceflight. He once stated in an interview that he occasionally got fan mail intended for actor George Wendt. Wendt died from a stroke on May 3, 2010, at his home in Merritt Island, Florida, aged 85. His wife had died in 1993 after over 40 years of marriage. He left three daughters, and at the time of his death already had a great-great-grandson.
Happy 75th birthday to former NASA astronaut Sherwood "Woody" Spring. Born in Hartford, he graduated from West Point in 1967 with a degree in general engineering. He served two tours in Vietnam: one with the 101st Airborne, and one as a helicopter pilot with the 1st Cavalry. Through the 70s, he was a Test Pilot, getting a master's in aerospace engineering from Arizona in 1974. Spring was selected to the Astronaut Corps with Group 9 in 1980. He would fly the second mission of Atlantis, STS-61-B, in November 1985, and take part in two EVAs. He was one of the lead investigators of the Challenger disaster on a "tiger team" out of KSC. He left NASA in 1988. Spring would remain in the Army until 1994, retiring as a Colonel. In the private sector, he would be a defense contractor, and eventually a professor at Defense Acquisition University. Spring met his eventual wife while studying for his master's at Arizona. Both their children, a son and a daughter, were decorated gymnasts. Their son, Justin Spring, was on the U.S. men's gymnastics team that won bronze at Beijing in 2008, and is the head coach of men's gymnastics at his own alma mater, Illinois.
James Martin Taylor was born on November 27, 1930, in Stamps, Arkansas. After graduating from the Michigan Air Force ROTC in 1959 with a degree in electrical engineering, he went in as a test pilot. Taylor excelled to a level that he was selected in the first group of pilots for the Air Force's Manned Orbiting Laboratory in 1965. He ranged among the older of the members of that class; only two were older than him. Taylor was actually selected to fly the first manned MOL mission in 1972. However, the program was canceled in 1969. NASA placed an age limit of 35 on astronauts who would be transferred over from the program. The only remaining member of MOL Group 1 who qualified was Richard Truly (he was 27 when selected for MOL). Taylor returned to the Air Force Test Pilot School, where he rose to be its deputy commandant. 49 years ago today, he was landing at Palmdale Regional Airport with an exchange student from the Armee l'Air, Pierre du Bucq, when they hit turbulence from a C-141 that was doing a touch-and-go passthrough on the intersecting runway. Their T-38 was shoved into the tarmac and crashed. Both pilots died. Taylor was 39. He left a wife and three children. His final rank in the Air Force was Lieutenant Colonel. His funeral was attended by his fellow MOL astronauts.
30 years ago today, Himawari 4 was launched atop an H-I rocket from Pad O, Tanegashima Space Center. Himawari 4 is Japan's analogue to GOES weather satellites, and also provides search and rescue services. Himawari is used almost universally throughout East Asia and Australasia. H-I was the third generation of Japan's Thor-derived licensed liquid-fuel launchers, using indigenous second and upper stages. What made H-I unique is that its second stage was fueled by liquid hydrogen. The second stage and its engine were built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Its solid-fueled kickmotor was built by Nissan. This was the only launch for the rocket to use six SRMs instead of 9. Overall, H-I was launched nine times, all successful. Himawari 4 would be in use for 10 years. It would slowly drift from 160°E to 120°E over that period of time, before being boosted to a graveyard orbit in 2000.
30 years ago today, the second Titan 23G rocket was launched from Pad 4W, Vandenberg AFB. The payload, USA-45, was identical to the payload of the first Titan 23G launch a year and a day before it, an SIGINT satellite code-named "Bernie". Unlike the first one, the payload failed shortly after achieving orbit. The launch itself was perfectly fine. The Titan 23G was a refurbished Titan II ICBM. As part of the modifications, the top was modified to hold a more standard spacecraft fairing instead of a warhead fairing, and the guidance system was replaced by ACDelco. Yes, that ACDelco. Other than that, it was really no different technically than the Titan II GLV that launched the Gemini spacecraft, and had the same payload capacity. Though it was exclusively used at Vandenberg, so its capacity to SSO was only 4,800 lbs. Martin Marietta was awarded the contract to refit the ICBMs at the beginning of 1986 as part of the decommissioning of the Titan II weapons system. In addition to the modifications described above, some of the missiles required some mix-and-match. This particular rocket had a first stage from Titan II S/N B-75, and a second stage from S/N B-99. Some of the stages even required tanks to be harvested from other Titan II missiles. A total of 13 Titan 23G rockets were launched, with one failure (Landsat 6). A spare was donated to the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon.