The events on this day in history for our heritage companies are noted below.
The earliest event was in 1958, the latest event was in 2004
Human Spaceflight:
1968 – Apollo 8 enters lunar orbit
Military and Classified Programs:
1965 – LAUNCH: Classified mission, Thor SLV-2A/Lockheed Agena D, SLC1W, VAFB
Exploration and Interplanetary Programs:
2004 – Cassini mission Huygens probe release successful; landing occurred on January 14, 2005
Earth-Monitoring and Civil Weather Satellite programs:
NONE
Commercial Programs:
NONE
Test, ICBM, FBM programs:
1958 – LAUNCH: GD Atlas C, LC12, CCAFS
Other:
NONE
The photos today are from two missions. First, there is a photo of the Huygens probe being assembled before launch – this ESA spacecraft was deployed by Cassini on this day in 2004 to head to the Saturnian moon Titan for a landing on January 14, 2005. The second photo is the view of Earth from lunar orbit on the Apollo 8 mission. I remember this event vividly – we came out of Christmas Eve services at our church and found we had a flat tire on the car. My Dad changed the tire while my Mom and I listened to the news reports on the radio about the astronauts in orbit of the moon and loved hearing them read the story of Genesis.