The events on this day in history for our heritage companies are noted below.
The earliest event was in 1956, the latest event was in 2009
Three milestone events (5 to 65+ years ago)
Human Spaceflight:
1989 – LAUNCH: STS-33 (Discovery), LC39A, KSC – 5 person crew; deployed classified spacecraft – we saw this from Cocoa Beach! – MILESTONE: 35 years ago. Crew: Frederick Gregory, John Blaha, Sonny Carter, Story Musgrave, Kathryn Thornton.
Military and Classified Programs:
1999 – LAUNCH: UHF F/O F10, LM Atlas IIA, LC36B, CCAFS – MILESTONE: 25 years ago
Exploration and Interplanetary Programs:
NONE
Earth-Monitoring and Civil Weather Satellite programs:
1960 – LAUNCH: RCA Tiros-2, Thor Delta, LC17A, CCAFS
Commercial Programs:
2009 – LAUNCH: Intelsat IS-14, ULA Atlas V 431, LC41, CCAFS – MILESTONE: 15 years ago
Test, ICBM, FBM programs:
1956 – LAUNCH: Lockheed X-17, LC3, CCAFS
1961 – The 566th squadron of GD Atlas E ICBMs is deployed at Warren AFB, Cheyenne
1976 – LAUNCH (2): Lockheed Poseidon C3, SSBN655, ETR
Other:
1993 – MM buys GE Astrospace Division, including the heritage RCA space group
The photos today are from the STS-33 launch and mission. Two photos were taken by Steve and I (STS-33 on the pad at the Cape and the launch as seen from Cocoa Beach). We were down in Florida on vacation and did a KSC tour to see STS-33 on the pad and then watched the launch from the beach (because the launch was classified, I was unable to get us passes into CCAFS). Photo Credits: Copyright © 2024 Steven and Barbara Sande (from the beach) and NASA.
Note also on this day in 1993, Martin Marietta bought the GE Astrospace division, which included heritage RCA Space Group products.
