The events on this day in history for our heritage companies are noted below.
The earliest event was in 1961, the latest was in 2018
No milestone events (5 to 65+ years ago)
Human Spaceflight:
1961 – LAUNCH: Mercury MR-3 (Freedom 7), LC5, CCAFS – First American in space (Alan Shepard) – Significant space milestone
1993 – LANDING: STS-55 (Columbia), Edwards AFB
Military and Classified Programs:
1971 – LAUNCH: IMEWS2 (DSP), MM Titan IIIC, LC40, CCAFS
2009 – LAUNCH: USA-205, ULA Delta 7920-10C, SLC2W, VAFB
2014 – LM MUOS program gives USN the first reliable communications in the Arctic region
Exploration and Interplanetary Programs:
2018 – LAUNCH: LM Mars InSight Lander, ULA Atlas V 401, SLC3E, VAFB
Earth-Monitoring and Civil Weather Satellite programs:
NONE
Commercial Programs:
1997 – LAUNCH (5): LM (Motorola) Iridium, Delta 7920-10C, SLC2W, VAFB
Test, ICBM, FBM programs:
NONE
Other:
NONE
The photos today are from two missions. First, there are photos of the Mercury-Redstone 3 launch in 1961 and astronaut Alan Shepard; also known as Freedom 7, this suborbital launch was a significant space milestone, carrying the first American into space. Photo Credits: NASA.
Second, there is a photo of the InSight Lander launch on ULA Atlas V 401 in 2018 and a photo of the spacecraft being processed. InSight landed on Mars on 11/26/2018. Photo Credit: NASA. Here is a caption for the processing photo:
The solar arrays on NASA’s InSight lander are deployed in this test inside a clean room at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver. This configuration is how the spacecraft will look on the surface of Mars. The image was taken on April 30, 2015.
InSight, for Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, is scheduled for launch in March 2016 and landing in September 2016. It will study the deep interior of Mars to advance understanding of the early history of all rocky planets, including Earth. The InSight Project is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. InSight is part of NASA’s Discovery Program, which is managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lockheed Martin (public release, found on Wikipedia).
