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 2021
Three milestone events (5 to 65+ years ago)
Human Spaceflight:
1988 – LAUNCH: STS-27 (Atlantis), LC39B, KSC – 5 person crew, classified payload. Crew: Robert Gibson, Guy Gardner, Richard Mullane, Jerry Ross, William Shepherd.
1990 – LAUNCH: STS-35 (Columbia), LC39B, KSC – 7 person crew, telescope experiments using ASTRO-1. Crew: Vance Brand, Guy Gardner, Jeffrey Hoffman, John Lounge, Robert Parker, Samuel Durrance, Ronald Parise.
1991 – LANDING: STS-44 (Atlantis), Edwards AFB
1992 – LAUNCH: STS-53 (Discovery), LC39A, KSC – 5 person crew, classified payloads. Crew: David Walker, Robert Cabana, Guion Bluford, Michael Clifford, James Voss.
1993 – LAUNCH: STS-61 (Endeavour), LC39B, KSC – 7 person crew, first Hubble servicing mission. Crew: Richard Covey, Ken Bowersox, Kathryn Thornton, Claude Nicollier (ESA – Switzerland), Jeffrey Hoffman, Story Musgrave, Thomas Akers.
2021 – Nanoracks, Voyager Space, and Lockheed Martin awarded contract to build Starlabs commercial space station for NASA
Military and Classified Programs:
2003 – LAUNCH: USA-173, LM Atlas IIAS, SLC3E, VAFB
Exploration and Interplanetary Programs:
1974 – Pioneer 11 fly-by of Jupiter – MILESTONE: 50 years ago
1995 – LAUNCH: SOHO, LM Atlas IIAS, LC36B, CCAFS – Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (Europe)
Earth-Monitoring and Civil Weather Satellite programs:
NONE
Commercial Programs:
NONE
Test, ICBM, FBM programs:
1964 – LAUNCH: Lockheed Polaris A3, SSBN634, ETR – MILESTONE: 60 years ago
1969 – LAUNCH: Lockheed Polaris A3, SSBN620, ETR – MILESTONE: 55 years ago
Other:
1965 – Development of GD Atlas SLV-3A (Agena) and Atlas SLV-3 (Centaur) approved by NASA
The photo collage today shows the four shuttle launches and one shuttle landing that happened on December 2 in five separate years, along with the crew for the four launches and a photo from the mission where appropriate. All photo credits: NASA.
STS-27 in 1988 was the second flight after the Challenger disaster and was a classified mission. The Orbiter (Atlantis) suffered extensive thermal protection system damage during ascent (photo included of that damage).
STS-35 in 1990 performed astronomical observation with the ASTRO-1 suite of telescopes and was the fourth and last flight for Commander Vance Brand.
STS-44 landed in 1991 at Edwards, completing a classified DoD mission.
STS-53 was a classified mission for the DoD.
STS-61 was the first Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission in 1993. With extensive upgrades to fix the optical aberration of the telescope and other major upgrades, the mission lasted eleven days.
