The events on this day in history for our heritage companies are noted below.
The earliest event was in 1964, the latest event was in 2007
Three milestone events (5 to 65+ years ago)
Human Spaceflight:
1983 – LANDING: STS-8 (Challenger), Edwards AFB
1984 – LANDING: STS-41-D (Discovery), Edwards AFB – MILESTONE: 40 years ago
Military and Classified Programs:
1988 – LAUNCH: USA 32, MM Titan II/SLV, SLC4W, VAFB- First launch of Titan II/SLV
Exploration and Interplanetary Programs:
1977 – LAUNCH: Voyager 1, MM Titan IIIE/GD Centaur, LC41, CCAFS – Jupiter and Saturn fly-bys, escape from the solar system, Voyager 1 is still operational in September, 2023
2002 – NASA awards the contract worth $824 million for the Webb/Next generation telescope to TRW (now Northrop Grumman); Lockheed Martin loses out on successor to HST. JWST finally launched on December 25, 2021, with a total cost estimated at $10 billion (including operations).
Earth-Monitoring and Civil Weather Satellite programs:
1964 – LAUNCH: OGO-1, GD Atlas/Lockheed Agena D, LC12, CCAFS – orbiting geophysical observatory – MILESTONE: 60 years ago
Commercial Programs:
2007 – LAUNCH FAILURE: LM JCSAT-11, Proton-M/Briz-M, LC200/39, Baikonur, Kazakhstan