The events on this day in history for our heritage companies are noted below.
The earliest event was in 1961, the latest event was in 2015
Three milestone events (5 to 65+ years ago)
Human Spaceflight:
1969 – SPLASHDOWN: Apollo 11, Pacific, USS Hornet – MILESTONE: 55 years ago
1975 – SPLASHDOWN: Apollo-Soyuz Test Project Apollo capsule – crew (Tom Stafford, Vance Brand, Deke Slayton) nearly asphyxiated by fumes from thrusters due to a problem in the sequence of events that required them to manually deploy the drogue and main parachute systems (thus letting valves open while thrusters were firing, bringing in the fumes). All three were hospitalized for two weeks following the mission.
Military and Classified Programs:
1969 – LAUNCH: Lockheed Corona 134, Thorad SLV-3H/Lockheed Agena D, SLC3W, VAFB – MILESTONE: 55 years ago
2015 – LAUNCH: WGS-7, ULA Delta 4M+(5,4), LC37B, CCAFS
Exploration and Interplanetary Programs:
1961 – RCA receives a contract for television system on Ranger spacecraft
Earth-Monitoring and Civil Weather Satellite programs:
NONE
Commercial Programs:
NONE
Test, ICBM, FBM programs:
1969 – LAUNCH: Lockheed Polaris A3, UK S26, ETR – MILESTONE: 55 years ago
1984 – LAUNCH: Lockheed Poseidon C3, SSBN654, ETR
1995 – LAUNCH: Lockheed Trident D5, UK S29, ETR
Other:
NONE
The photos today are of two events. First, there is a photo after splashdown of Apollo 11 CM in the Pacific; the recovery efforts were from the USS Hornet. Photo Credit: NASA.
Second, there is a photo of the Apollo CM from the Apollo Soyuz Test Project in the California Science Center (Photo Credit: California Science Center/Perry Roth-Johnson).
The following problem happened during reentry of the ASTP CM (from Wikipedia):
The mission was considered a great success, both technically and as a public-relations exercise for both nations. The only serious problem was during reentry and splashdown of the Apollo craft, during which the crew were accidentally exposed to toxic monomethylhydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide fumes, caused by unignited reaction control system (RCS) hypergolic propellants venting from the spacecraft and reentering a cabin air intake. The RCS was inadvertently left on during descent, and the toxic fumes were sucked into the spacecraft as it drew in outside air. Brand briefly lost consciousness, while Stafford retrieved emergency oxygen masks, put one on Brand, and gave one to Slayton. The three astronauts were hospitalized for two weeks in Honolulu, Hawaii. Brand took responsibility for the mishap; because of high noise levels in the cabin during reentry, he believes he was unable to hear Stafford call off one item of the reentry checklist, the closure of two switches which would have automatically shut off the RCS and begun drogue parachute deployment. These procedures were manually performed later than usual, allowing the ingestion of the propellant fumes through the ventilation system.
