The events on this day in history for our heritage companies are noted below.
The earliest event was in 1955, the latest event was in 2021
Four milestone events (5 to 65+ years ago)
Human Spaceflight:
2021 – LM Orion spacecraft for Artemis I completed and turned over to NASA (latest iteration at that time)
Military and Classified Programs:
1967 – LAUNCH: Lockheed Corona 114, Thor SLV-2A/Lockheed Agena D, SLC3W, VAFB
1970 – LAUNCH: Classified mission, MM Titan 23B, SLC4W, VAFB – MILESTONE: 55 years ago
Exploration and Interplanetary Programs:
2005 – ESA Huygens probe lands on the Saturn moon of Titan (Cassini/Huygens launched by LM Titan IVB/Centaur in 1997) – MILESTONE: 20 years ago
Earth-Monitoring and Civil Weather Satellite Programs:
NONE
Commercial Programs:
1996 – LAUNCH: LM Koreasat2, Delta 7925, LC17B, CCAFS
Test, ICBM, FBM programs:
1955 – Contract awarded to Aerojet-General for Martin Titan I ICBM engines – MILESTONE: 70 years ago
1961 – LAUNCH FAILURE: Lockheed Polaris A1, SSBN-601, ETR
1965 – LAUNCH: MM Titan I launch, 395-3A, VAFB – MILESTONE: 60 years ago
Other:
NONE
The photos today include images taken during descent at landing of the ESA Huygens probe on the Saturn moon of Titan in 2005. Huygens had several experiments on-board to measure winds and atmospheric properties during descent and on the surface. The probe’s transmissions lasted about 90 minutes after touchdown due to battery constraints. The temperature at the landing site was 93.8 Kelvin (-179.3 °C; −290.8 °F) and pressure was 1,467.6 mbar (1.4484 atm), implying a methane abundance of 5 ± 1% and methane relative humidity of 50% near the surface. Photo Credits: ESA/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona. File is public domain due to the imaging instrument, the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer, being furnished by NASA for the Huygens probe, and the analysts at the University of Arizona working under contract for NASA during the mission.
Lockheed Martin built the Descent Imager and Spectral Radiometer for the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona (according to information received from Greg Bollendonk on the company’s contributions to planetary missions). Here’s information about the DISR from Wikipedia:
As Huygens was primarily an atmospheric mission, the DISR instrument was optimized to study the radiation balance inside Titan’s atmosphere. Its visible and infrared spectrometers and violet photometers measure the up- and downward radiant flux from an altitude of 145 km (90 mi) down to the surface. Solar aureole cameras measured how scattering by aerosols varies the intensity directly around the Sun. Three imagers, sharing the same CCD, periodically imaged a swath of around 30 degrees wide, ranging from almost nadir to just above the horizon. Aided by the slowly spinning probe they would build up a full mosaic of the landing site, which, surprisingly, became clearly visible only below 25 km (16 mi) altitude. All measurements were timed by aid of a shadow bar, which would tell DISR when the Sun had passed through the field of view. Unfortunately, this scheme was upset by the fact that Huygens rotated in a direction opposite to that expected. Just before landing a lamp was switched on to illuminate the surface, which enabled measurements of the surface reflectance at wavelengths which are completely blocked out by atmospheric methane absorption.
