The events on this day in history for our heritage companies are noted below.
The earliest event was in 1960, the latest was in 1998
One milestone event (5 to 65+ years ago)
Human Spaceflight:
NONE
Military and Classified Programs:
1963 – LAUNCH: Classified spacecraft, Thor/Lockheed Agena D, SLC2E, VAFB
Exploration and Interplanetary Programs:
1968 – LAUNCH: Surveyor 7, GD Atlas SLV-3C, LC36A, CCAFS – soft lander on moon
1998 – LAUNCH: LM Lunar Prospector, LM Athena-2, LC46, CCAFS – low polar orbit lunar mission
Earth-Monitoring and Civil Weather Satellite Programs:
NONE
Commercial Programs:
1974 – LAUNCH: Intelsat 4A-F3, GD Atlas SLV-3D/Centaur, LC36B, CCAFS – MILESTONE: 50 years ago
Test, ICBM, FBM programs:
1960 – LAUNCH: GD Atlas D, LC13, CCAFS
Other:
NONE
The photos today are from two missions. First, there is the launch of Surveyor 7 (the last Surveyor to land on the moon) on Atlas SLV-3C in 1968.
Second, there are photos of the Lunar Prospector spacecraft built by LM and the Athena-2 launch of Lunar Prospector in 1998. The Lunar Prospector mission had six instruments: a Gamma Ray Spectrometer, a Neutron Spectrometer, a Magnetometer, an Electron Reflectometer, an Alpha Particle Spectrometer and a Doppler Gravity Experiment. The instruments were omnidirectional and required no sequencing. The normal observation sequence was to record and downlink data continuously. The spacecraft operated in low polar orbit around the moon until it was deliberately crashed into the surface on July 31, 1999.
Here’s a story about the one of the findings from Lunar Prospector from NASA:
On 5 March 1998 it was announced that data returned by the Lunar Prospector spacecraft indicated that water ice might be present at both the north and south lunar poles, in agreement with interpretations of Clementine results for the south pole reported in November 1996. The ice originally appeared to be mixed in with the lunar regolith (surface rocks, soil, and dust) at low concentrations conservatively estimated at 0.3 to 1 percent. Subsequent data from Lunar Prospector taken over a longer period has indicated the possible presence of discrete, confined, near-pure water ice deposits buried beneath as much as 18 inches (40 centimeters) of dry regolith, with the water signature being stronger at the Moon’s north pole than at the south. The ice was thought to be spread over 10,000 to 50,000 square km (3,600 to 18,000 square miles) of area near the north pole and 5,000 to 20,000 square km (1,800 to 7,200 square miles) around the south pole, but the latest results show the water may be more concentrated in localized areas (roughly 1850 square km, or 650 square miles, at each pole) rather than being spread out over these large regions. The estimated total mass of ice is 6 trillion kg (6.6 billion tons). Uncertainties in the models mean this estimate could be off considerably.
