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On this day – August 18

Posted on August 18, 2024August 1, 2024 By Barb Sande

The events on this day in history for our heritage companies are noted below.

The earliest event was in 1957, the latest event was in 2017

One milestone event (5 to 65+ years ago)

Human Spaceflight:

NONE

Military and Classified Programs:

1960 – LAUNCH: Lockheed Discoverer 14, Thor/Lockheed Agena A, SLC1W, VAFB

1970 – LAUNCH: Classified mission, MM Titan 23B, SLC4W, VAFB

Exploration and Interplanetary Programs:

1999 – Cassini Earth fly-by – MILESTONE: 25 years ago

Earth-Monitoring and Civil Weather Satellite programs:

2017 – LAUNCH: TDRS 13, ULA Atlas V 401, LC41, CCAFS

Commercial Programs:

NONE

Test, ICBM, FBM programs:

1957 – LAUNCH FAILURE: Lockheed X-17, LC3, CCAFS

1972 – LAUNCH (4): Lockheed Poseidon C3, SSBN631, ETR

1977 – LAUNCH: Lockheed Trident C4, LC25C, CCAFS

Other:

NONE

There are images from two events today. First, there is a photo of the launch of Discoverer 14 on Thor/Agena A in 1960.  This was the first completely successful mission in the Corona program, from launch through film canister recovery.   This photo was found on Wikipedia and is labeled “public domain” as it is a product of a government program. 

Second, there is a an artist’s conception showing the earth fly-by of Cassini in 1999.  The flyby, after two Venus gravity assists, gave Cassini a 5.5-kilometer-per- second (about 12,000-mile-per-hour) boost in speed, sending the spacecraft on toward the ringed planet more than 1 billion kilometers (almost one billion miles) away.  One more gravity assist would occur at Jupiter before Cassini’s arrival at Saturn in 2004.   Image Credit: NASA. 

August 18 – Discoverer 14 (Corona program) launches on Thor/Agena A in 1960. Photo Credit: Public Domain (as noted on Wikipedia).
August 18 – Artist’s conception of the Earth fly-by of Cassini. Image Credit: NASA.
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