The events on this day in history for our heritage companies are noted below.
The earliest event was in 1960, the latest event was in 2003
Two milestone events (5 to 65+ years ago)
Human Spaceflight:
1964 – LAUNCH: Gemini I, MM Titan II/GLV, LC19, CCAFS – unmanned first test, qualified the stack – MILESTONE: 60 years ago
1965 – RCA receives a contract from NASA for Apollo deep-space tracking and data acquisition systems
1993 – LAUNCH: STS-56 (Discovery), LC39A, KSC – 5 person crew, ATLAS 2 (Atmospheric Laboratory) and Spartan (solar astronomy) experiments. Crew: Kenneth Cameron, Stephen Oswald, Michael Foale (United Kingdom), Kenneth Cockrell, Ellen Ochoa.
1997 – LANDING: STS-83 (Columbia), KSC
2002 – LAUNCH: STS-110 (Atlantis), LC39B, KSC – 7 person crew, ISS assembly (S0 truss assembly). Crew: Michael Bloomfield, Stephen Frick, Rex Waldheim, Ellen Ochoa, Lee Morin, Jerry Ross, Steven Smith.
Military and Classified Programs:
1961 – LAUNCH: Lockheed Discoverer 23, Thor/Lockheed Agena B, SLC1E, VAFB
1970 – LAUNCH (2): Vela 11, 12, MM Titan IIIC, LC40, CCAFS
2003 – LAUNCH: LM Milstar 6 (2-F4), LM Titan IVB(401)/Centaur, LC40, CCAFS – Final Milstar system
Exploration and Interplanetary Programs:
1966 – LAUNCH FAILURE: Surveyor Model, GD Atlas D/Centaur, LC37B, CCAFS – Centaur propulsion leak
1967 – LAUNCH: OAO-1, GD Atlas SLV-3/Lockheed Agena D, LC12, CCAFS
Earth-Monitoring and Civil Weather Satellite programs:
1970 – LAUNCH: RCA Nimbus 4, Thorad SLV-2G/Lockheed Agena D, SLC2E, VAFB
Commercial Programs:
NONE
Test, ICBM, FBM programs:
1960 – LAUNCH: Martin Titan I, LC16, CCAFS
1960 – LAUNCH FAILURE: GD Atlas D, LC11- exploded at liftoff
1963- LAUNCH: Lockheed Polaris A3, LC29A, CCAFS
1964 – LAUNCH: Lockheed Polaris A3, EAG-154, Johnston Island, Pacific – MILESTONE: 60 years ago
1983 – LAUNCH: Lockheed Poseidon C3, SSBN642, ETR
1992 – LAUNCH(2): Lockheed Trident C4, SSBN655, ETR
Other:
NONE
The photos today are from two missions. First, there is a photo of the Gemini 1 launch (Titan II/GLV) in 1964. This unmanned test launch was first scheduled to take place in December, 1963 but there were delays in the arrival of all of the subsystems at the Cape.
The second set of photos are from the last Milstar launch on Titan IVB/Centaur in 2003 and a photo of a Milstar 2 system being processed.
