54 years ago today, Nimbus 4 was launched atop a Thorad-Agena rocket from Pad 2E, Vandenberg AFB. The fifth planned satellite in the Nimbus environmental satellite series (fourth successful), it had various infrared and ultraviolet sensors directed largely at Earth. It would be operational until September 1980, but only on a limited bases after its first year due to issues with its reaction control system. As I have noted long ago, Thorad was the classification for the early stretched Long-Tank Thor core rocket that were not used with the Delta upper stage. Thorad-classified rockets were only ever used with the Agena upper stage.
44 years ago today, Soyuz 35 was launched atop a Soyuz-U rocket from Pad 31/6, Baikonur Cosmodrome. Aboard for launch was rookie commander Leonid Popov. He was originally to be joined by flight engineer Valentin Lebedev, but he was sidelined by a knee injury during training. So he was instead joined by two-mission veteran Valeri Ryumin. Popov and Ryumin would make up long-term Expedition 4 aboard the Salyut 6 space station. At 184 days, it would be the longest tenure aboard Salyut 6. They would be visited by four different crews, including Interkosmos cosmonauts from Hungary, Vietnam, and Cuba. Soyuz 35 would return to Earth with the first of those visiting crews, Valeri Kubasov and Hungarian Bertalan Farkas, in June. Popov and Ryumin would return to Earth aboard Soyuz 37, leaving Salyut 6 abandoned for about seven weeks before the maintenance crew of Soyuz T-3.
You'd think things would be jubilant on Yuri's Night. It wasn't so 57 years ago today. The scene was described as chaos. Instead of celebrating, the cosmonauts and technicians had to work day and night. The techs were working to iron out the scores of remaining bugs in Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 2. They were planned to be launched in less than two weeks. The cosmonauts were training simultaneously for Soyuz as well as for the L1 circumlunar flights. The only method the cosmonauts have to keep in shape is playing tennis. And they all have to share a single tennis court. There are plans to build a second. Eventually. Naturally, head of cosmonaut training Nikolai Kamanin was not happy with the situation. He pointed the finger right at Vasily Mishin. He would take his complaints to the man who was forming the State Commission regarding the Soyuz spacecraft, Kerim Karimov. Kerimov would head that State Commission in a recurring role that would last until the fall of the Soviet Union. During that time, he would also be a project manager for the civilian Salyut space stations. He would also be a lieutenant general in the Soviet Army. Yes, the Army, not the Air Force.
The Starliner Crewed Flight Test has had a couple slight schedule slips recently, but is currently penned in for Monday evening, May 6, at 10:34pm EDT. And NASA has finally fully rebuilt the crew for the first operational Starliner flight, Starliner-1. 🌙 Jeremy Hansen will be the first Canadian to travel to the Moon on the Artemis II mission👨🚀 Joshua Kutryk will be the first Canadian to fly under NASA's Commercial Crew Program as part of the Starliner-1 missionPhotos : NASA/Kim Shiflett/David DeHoyos pic.twitter.com/VXPZfW4uav— Canadian Space Agency (@csa_asc) April 12, 2024 Joining commander Scott Tingle and pilot Michael Fincke will be Canadian astronaut Josh Kutryk and Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui. Kutryk will be the only rookie among them. The mission is currently slotted in for Spring 2025, but that's making a lot of assumptions at this point. SpaceX Crew-10 currently does not have a crew assigned beyond cosmonaut Kirill Peskov.
49 years ago today, a Space Test Program mission referred to as P72-2 was launched atop an Atlas E/F rocket from Pad 3W, Vandenberg AFB. There was just one problem: the sound suppression system was not working. I doubt this was a new issue, as there was an accumulation of solidified kerosene residue, described as being a gel, in the launch pad's flame trench. When the rocket's engines ignited, the kerosene residue exploded, damaging one of the booster engines. The engines failed, and the rocket was destroyed by range safety 5 minutes into flight.
76 years ago today, the Soviet Union decreed a beginning to production of the R-1 and R-2 ballistic missiles. The R-1 was essentially the Soviet analogue to the German V-2 ballistic missile. It was regarded as having greater reliability than the V-2, but also had 50 km less range (only 170 km).The R-2 was considerably upscaled, enabling a range of 570 km. A variant focused on vertical sounding rocket launches, the R-2A, was capable of reaching an apogee of 200 km. Various research payloads were used with the R-2A, including capsules capable of carrying animals. This research was aimed at eventually adapting these capsules to carry men, with the assumption at the time being that the Soviet Union would not have a rocket capable of carrying humans until the mid-'60s. In the meantime, yet another rocket, the R-3, was also in the design phase. While Valentin Glushko was put in charge of the R-1 and R-2, Sergei Korolev was heading up the R-3. The intent of the R-3 was the ability to launch a 3,000-kg nuclear warhead that could reach anywhere in Europe. This would require a range of 3,000 km. In the end, the R-3 would never see the light of day. Its development would instead lead to the R-5 Podeba medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM). And eventually, to the massive R-7 Semyorka ICBM.
Happy 73rd birthday to NASA astronaut Marsha Ivins. Born in Baltimore, but raised in suburban Philly, she graduated with a bachelor's in aerospace engineering from Colorado in 1973. She promptly went to work at Johnson Space Center, getting involved in development for the Space Shuttle, and also flying NASA's Gulfstream admin aircraft. Marsha was part of the development team that created the orbiter's HUD system, which would see rollout beginning with Challenger, and Columbia's post-test refit. She would also serve as a flight engineer on the early missions. She was selected as an astronaut in the mission specialist track of Group 10 in 1984. She would fly on five missions: STS-32, LDEF retrieval and Leasat-5 deployment aboard Columbia in February 1990; STS-46, EURECA and TSS initial flight aboard Atlantis in August 1992; STS-62, USMP-2 Spacelab mission aboard Columbia in March 1994; STS-81, Mir docking mission aboard Atlantis in January 1997; and STS-98, installing the Destiny laboratory module at the International Space Station from Atlantis in February 2001. Marsha retired from NASA at the end of 2010. These days, she runs a human interface consulting firm, and spends her spare time speaking about her experiences as an astronaut. She has logged 7,000 hours of flying time in various aircraft. She's going to be inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame this year.
72 years ago today, Bell Aircraft made a proposal to the NACA: A bomber-missile, or BoMi. The idea for the BoMi was for a lifting body to be launched into space, re-enter and glide toward a target to drop bombs, then use a lift-glide flight profile to land. This concept would be further subdivided into various types of weapons. The BoMi itself would evolve into the rocket-bomber (RoBo). It would also split off a reconnaisance aircraft dubbed "Brass Bell", as well as an early hypersonic testbed dubbed HYWARDS (Hypersonic Weapons Research and Development Supporting system). Within five years, all these subdivisions would be re-merged into the X-20 Dyna Soar space-faring lifting body program. But that program would be taken up by Boeing. By that time, Bell's founder, Lawrence Bell, had died, and the company struggled until it was acquired in 1960 by Textron. While better known for its helicopters (as well as the XV-15 Titrotor and V-22 Osprey VTOL aircraft), Bell would continue to be a component provider for NASA projects, including reaction control for Project Mercury.
Falcon 9 booster 1077 is now standing tall at launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center ahead of its 12th flight, scheduled for 5:26 p.m. EDT (2126 UTC) today. Watch live views of the pad: https://t.co/RyxdGWHY6m pic.twitter.com/Ow0LVIZyGC— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) April 17, 2024 SpaceX has two Starlink launches planned over the next two days out of Cape Canaveral. The first will be this afternoon at 5:26 EDT from Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center. THe second will be tomorrow at 6:40pm EDT out of Pad 40. ******** A Minotaur IV rocket is back on the manifest. Planned to launch NROL-174, a classified mission, it will be lifted by an Orion 38 solid-fuel upper stage. The launch is penciled in for this month from Pad 8, Vandenberg SFB. Minotaur IV has not been launched since May 2020.
Yesterday, the National Reconnaissance Office lifted a bit of the veil on its latest project: a spy satellite constellation resulting from a team-up between SpaceX and Northrop Grumman. SpaceX got a $1.8 billion contract for their part of the project in 2021. The best I can gather from the available information is that SpaceX is building the satellite buses, while NG is providing the sensors. The NRO said that SpaceX has already launched over a dozen prototypes. The satellites are under the Starshield initiative, with an ultimate goal of being able to instantly receive real-time intelligence in a wide array of disciplines anywhere in the world. Sounds like the instant intelligence available to James Bond as early as GoldenEye to me. Guess the American government was tired of just getting their bad news from CNN.
It's been a while since Galileo, Europe's navigation system, has seen a new satellite launch. The last expected launch was a pair of satellites planned to launch in 2022 atop a Soyuz ST-B rocket. I don't need to say why that didn't happen. ESA then moved the launch to the Ariane 6 rocket. Which is still on a hefty set of delays. Though they are still aiming for a late June debut flight. So ESA instead reached out to SpaceX. The two Galileo satellites will be launched atop Falcon 9 first stage B1060.20, with a launch attempt penciled in for Friday, April 28. It will also be the final flight for booster B1060.20. Each satellite weighs 675 kg. But they need to be placed in a 22,000-km MEO. So SpaceX decided to give one of its oldest first stages its swan song with this launch. Ariane 6 isn't planned now to lift a Galileo satellite until next year, when it is targeting three pairs of first-gen satellites, and later the first second-gen satellite. As for Falcon 9, it is likely there may be two more new Falcon 9 first stages in the works, as the current known list skips B1088 and B1089, with B1087 before being the Falcon Heavy core that will launch GOES-U, and B1090 after being the Falcon Heavy core that will launch Europa Clipper. Both those launches already have assigned side boosters.
54 years ago today, the Soviet space program was working on mission planning for Salyut 1, which they were hoping to launch by the end of 1970. Vasily Mishin had four crews planned out: Soyuz 10: Vladimir Shatalov, Alexei Yeliseyev, Nikolai Rukavishnikov Soyuz 11: Georgi Shonin, Valeri Kubasov, Peter Kolodin Soyuz 12: Boris Volynov, Konstantin Feoktistov, Viktor Patsayev Soyuz 13: Yevgeni Khurnov, Vladislav Volkov, Vitali Sevastyanov In particular, the head of cosmonaut training, Nikolai Kamanin, took issue with including Feoktistov. He was dealing with chronic health issues, and also had to divorce and re-marry, something General Kamanin looked down upon. I can't imagine Kamanin not getting along with Deke Slayton. Feoktistov would never fly again, instead working as an engineer at TsKBEM and NPO Energia until 1990, when he retreated to Baumann Tech to become a professor. Georgi Shonin would follow a similar path, though without the marital drama. Medical issues would hold him out from further flights as well. He retired from the cosmonaut corps in 1979, and would work with the Soviet Ministry of Defense until 1990. He would be swapped out for Alexei Leonov, whose hopes of being the first Soviet on the moon were dwindling.
Voyager 1 has resumed coherent communication with Earth. In order to get it working, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory had to relocate the code found on the faulty FDS memory chip. They sent the reprogramming of the most critical portion of the code on Saturday. Yesterday—essentially how long it took for the send and response to travel round-trip—they got their first coherent signal since November, confirming that the moved code was functional. Over the next few weeks, JPL will finish moving the needed portions of the code found on the bad FDS chip, and make sure everything works properly so they can continue its mission.
Electron completed its latest launch Tuesday night with "Beginning of the Swarm", lifting the NeonSat-1 Earth observation satellite for the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), and the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) for NASA. ACS3 is a 12U cubesat that is an advancement of NEA Scout, a solar sail that was one of the cubesats that was launched on Artemis 1 with a dead battery. It will deploy sails that total 80 square metres in area. NASA will gauge the thrust provided by catching the solar wind, with hopes that that design will permit sails as large as 2,000 square metres. ******** The Galileo launch on Falcon 9 has been solidified to Saturday night at 8:34pm EDT. SpaceX is also launching a Starlink Sunday afternoon at 5:50pm EDT, both from Cape Canaveral. From Vandenberg SFB, SpaceX will be launching a pair of WorldView Legion Earth observation satellites today at 2:30pm EDT, and more Starlink satellites Saturday night at 10:45pm EDT.
26 years ago today, Columbia had a Ratt problem. The wake-up song was "Round and Round" by Ratt. Okay, old joke, don't care. It was STS-90, the final flight of a Spacelab module. In this case, module LM-2, on its seventh flight. It was used for the Neurolab mission, specifically studying the effects of microgravity on the brain and the nervous system. While SPACEHAB would take over for future modular missions, external Spacelab pallets would be used eight more times. The final use of a Spacelab pallet was STS-125 the last Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission.
No sooner did Voyager 1 get back in action that two more NASA missions took a dump. The Hubble Space Telescope was forced into safe mode last Tuesday after one of the gyroscopes began returning bad information. The same gyroscope also went into safe mode last November. If the faulty gyroscope cannot be recovered, Hubble would enter a limited operation mode where one of the two remaining gyros is placed in reserve, and it would operate with just one of the remaining gyros. SpaceX is still researching the feasibility of servicing Hubble. Polaris Dawn will play a huge role in that research with SpaceX's EVA spacesuit. ******** The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is also experiencing some issues. Purely by coincidence, TESS also entered safe mode last Tuesday. This follows another safe mode event on April 8. NASA is trying to determine if the two events are connected. TESS was launched by a Falcon 9 rocket on April 18, 2018. It was placed effectively in TLI, then took a polar fly-by of the Moon which swung it into a 2:1 resonance and threw its orbit at a right angle with the Moon. Kind of similar to Ulysses and its phase change fly-by over the pole of Jupiter to see the Sun's polar regions. It is currently on its third official mission extension, though it was hoped NASA could squeeze 15 years out of the satellite due to the stability of its orbit..
The stage is being set for the Starliner Crewed Flight Test. As we speak, SpaceX Crew-8 is moving Crew Dragon Endeavour to Harmony zenith, so forward can be opened up for Starliner Calypso. Launch is still go for Monday night at 10:34pm EDT. The launch will be the first crewed flight from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station proper since Apollo 7 in 1968. And the first one atop an Atlas-derived booster since Faith 7 1963. Of course, where there was excitement and hope prior to Crew Dragon Demonstration Mission 2, now there is only nervousness and fear. That is Boeing's fault. They have taken so many hits to their reputation in recent years. And hardly only because of Starliner. My only hope is that Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore survive this flight.
57 years ago today, NASA completed redesignation of future Project Apollo missions. Originally, Apollo missions were designated based on the serial numbers of their launch boosters. With the ill-fated Apollo 204 mission now redesignated Apollo 1, and the preceding missions redesignated to roughly match (Apollo 201 to 203 respectively as Apollo 1A, 2, and 3), they decided that successive missions would remain sequential in public documentation. The next mission, the maiden flight of the Saturn V rocket, was originally designated Apollo 501. It would henceforth be known as Apollo 4. It would be followed by Apollo 5, the solo test flight of the LM atop the next Saturn IB (AS-204); and Apollo 6, the second test flight of the Saturn V, which was planned to be circumlunar (Apollo 502). I'm inclined to think that the fact Apollo 5 would use the Apollo 204 Saturn IB played some sort of role in the redesignation. The first manned flight would ultimately be Apollo 7 with Wally Schirra's crew. That would use AS-205. The decision was spearheaded by Apollo program manager Gen. Samuel Phillips. NASA associate administrator for manned spaceflight George Mueller concurred.
Elon took May the Fourth to make a pretty big announcement The SpaceX Extravehicular Activity (EVA) suit → https://t.co/z2Z9iVpt6x #Maythe4thBeWithYou pic.twitter.com/peETlLCcDP— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 4, 2024 The SpaceX EVA suit has been completed, and is ready for the Polaris Dawn mission. The EVA suit boasts greater mobility, thermal improvements, and an in-visor HUD display. Like Project Gemini, they will connect to Crew Dragon with an umbilical. SpaceX hopes to use this as a base for future scalability. Including surface operations on the Moon and Mars. Naturally, this will require independent life support in the future. Polaris Dawn does not have an exact schedule as of yet.
25 years ago today, the second Delta III 8930 rocket was launched with the Orion 3 comsat from Pad 17B, Cape Canaveral. This one at least reached orbit. But upon ignition of the second stage, with its Centaur-derived Rocketdyne RL-10 engine, for its second GTO burn, the combustion chamber burst. It was left in a useless parking otbit. They wouldn't attempt to launch it again for over a year.
The launches today from Cape Canaveral are set to be a double feature, with both Pad 40 and Pad 41 occupied. SpaceX is planning to launch a set of Starlink comsats at 11:34am EDT. The 45th Weather Squadron gives them a 90% chance of weather favorability. The Starliner Crewed Flight Test is still on for 10:34pm EDT. For them, favorability increases further to 95%. It is somewhat concerning that they are not tracking the recovery corridor, however.
76 years ago today, Consolidated Vultee completed their static fire series for the engines of the MX-774 Hiroc long-range missile at Point Loma, San Diego. The MX-774 had been canceled by the Air Force the previous year, but they permitted Convair to exhaust the development capital that had been invested to that point. They would stretch those funds for the rest of the 1940s. The engine was the XLR35-RM-1. It was fueled with ethanol, and produced 8,000 lb-f of thrust. The engine could also be gimbaled up to 10 degrees in any direction for attitude control during flight. Completed Hiroc missiles would be launched three times from White Sands in 1948. The third flight would reach an apogee of 50 km. After three test flights, the Air Force commanded Convair to shut down further development. They coerced their chief designer, Belgian-American engineer Charlie Bossart, to sell the designs to TRW. TRW turned around and handed the designed to Martin and Douglas. Bossart never forgave the Air Force for that betrayal, and would continue to develop missile technology after Convair was acquired by General Dynamics. He would have the last laugh, as Atlas would be the last one standing from Titan and Thor.
ULA Launch Director Tom Heter III has made the decision to the launch team that launch operations will not continue tonight for #AtlasV and #Starliner.https://t.co/yCCjHu9R5K— ULA (@ulalaunch) May 7, 2024 Oxygen release valve issue— Heather Nevaeh Gulley (@nevaeh_gulley) May 7, 2024
The relief valve issue was on the Centaur upper stage. Not sure that's been a problem for a while. UPDATE: Boeing, NASA and United Launch Alliance have made the decision to allow engineering teams to spend Tuesday, May 7, evaluating the data and the next launch opportunity will be no earlier than Friday, May 10. https://t.co/TVJ5Wm4bR4— Boeing Space (@BoeingSpace) May 7, 2024 NASA and Lockheed Martin are holding the launch back to fully analyze the issue. The earliest they will launch now is Friday night. ******** The Starlink launch, however, went off without issue. Another one is planned from Pad 39A tomorrow morning at 10:42am EDT. It will be followed by one from Pad 4E, Vandenberg SFB, that evening at 10:48pm EDT.
I wanted to warm up my chops for a later project this year, so though I've done bits and pieces of this mission in the past, I wanted to do the full mission write-up treatment. 32 years ago today, Endeavour was launched on STS-49 from Pad 39B, Kennedy Space Center. The week-and-a-halftraffic of this stage began on February 15, 1982. When NASA ordered the construction of two new Space Shuttle orbiters, the eventual Discovery and Atlantis, they ordered enough spare parts for a third orbiter. This included a fully-constructed crew cabin. It was on that day that the spare crew cabin began construction. When the Challenger disaster took place, NASA committed immediately to replacing it. They had many options, including refitting Enterprise into an operational orbiter. But at that point, it had been sitting in a hanger at Dulles International Airport for a year since NASA transferred its ownership to the Smithsonian Institution. It was still two decades away from getting a dignified museum display of its own. NASA contacted Rockwell, and asked them to use the spare parts they acquisitioned to build a completely new orbiter. To name the orbiter, a national competition of American public schools was undertaken to select one. The main criterion was to name it after a research vessel. A full 1/3 of all school selections was Endeavour. It was after the first research ship commanded by James Cook, and also shared its name with the Apollo 15 command module. The schools officially selected as winners were Senatobia Middle School, Senatobia, Mississippi, in the primary division; and Tallulah Falls School, Georgia, in the high school division. Of course, later, it would later become the inspiration for the name of the first Crew Dragon spacecraft. The crew of seven was led by Dan Brandenstein on his third command. The only rookie was pilot Kevin Chilton, an Air Force research pilot who was destined for big things. More on that later. The task at hand, however, was a doozy. Intelsat had asked NASA to save one of its comsats. Two years before, Intelsat 603 launched atop a Commercial Titan III rocket. It was essentially an updated Titan 34D rocket, and the comsat would be sent to GTO by an Orbus-21S kickmotor. There was just one problem: the second stage did not separate from the kickmotor and payload. In order to save the comsat, Intelsat had to command separation of the satellite from the upper stage. They were able to get it to a stable orbit, permitting a possible rescue mission. In Endeavour's payload bay was a cradle with a new Orbus-21S kickmotor, along with tools they figured they could use to corral the satellite and install it on the new kickmotor. There was also a construction practice kit to test construction techniques for Space Station Freedom. Pierre Thuot and Richard Hieb were tasked with the Intelsat 603 salvage. Bruce Melnick would assist them from inside Endeavour using Canadarm. Kathy Thornton and Tom Akers were tasked with the space station practice. Launch took place at 7:40pm EDT. Endeavour was eventually placed in a 167x212-mile orbit, and set about chasing Intelsat 603. The crew went to bed not long after reaching its mission orbit.