The events on this day in history for our heritage companies are noted below.
The earliest event was in 1964, the latest event was in 2021
Human Spaceflight:
1988 – LAUNCH: STS-27 (Atlantis), LC39B, KSC – 5 person crew, classified payload
1990 – LAUNCH: STS-35 (Columbia), LC39B, KSC – 7 person crew, telescope experiments
1991 – LANDING: STS-44 (Atlantis), Edwards AFB
1992 – LAUNCH: STS-53 (Discovery), LC39A, KSC – 5 person crew, classified payloads
1993 – LAUNCH: STS-61 (Endeavour), LC39B, KSC – 7 person crew, first Hubble servicing mission
2021 – Nanoracks, Voyager Space, and Lockheed Martin awarded contract to build Starlabs commercial space station for NASA
Military and Classified Programs:
2003 – LAUNCH: USA-173, LM Atlas IIAS, SLC3E, VAFB
Exploration and Interplanetary Programs:
1974 – Pioneer 11 fly-by of Jupiter
1995 – LAUNCH: SOHO, LM Atlas IIAS, LC36B, CCAFS – Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (Europe)
Earth-Monitoring and Civil Weather Satellite programs:
NONE
Commercial Programs:
NONE
Test, ICBM, FBM programs:
1964 – LAUNCH: Lockheed Polaris A3, SSBN634, ETR
1969 – LAUNCH: Lockheed Polaris A3, SSBN620, ETR
Other:
1965 – Development of GD Atlas SLV-3A (Agena) and Atlas SLV-3 (Centaur) approved by NASA
The photo collage today shows the four shuttle launches and one shuttle landing that happened on December 2 in five separate years, along with the crew for the four launches and a photo from the mission where appropriate.
STS-27 in 1988 was the second flight after the Challenger disaster and was a classified mission. The Orbiter (Atlantis) suffered extensive thermal protection system damage during ascent (photo included of that damage).
STS-35 in 1990 performed astronomical observation with the ASTRO-1 suite of telescopes and was the fourth and last flight for Commander Vance Brand.
STS-44 landed in 1991 at Edwards, completing a classified DoD mission.
STS-53 was a classified mission for the DoD in 1992.
STS-61 was the first Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission in 1993. With extensive upgrades to fix the optical aberration of the telescope and other major upgrades, the mission lasted eleven days.
