The events on this day in history for our heritage companies are noted below.
The earliest event was in 1963, the latest event was in 1995
One milestone event (5 to 65+ years ago)
Human Spaceflight:
NONE
Military and Classified Programs:
NONE
Exploration and Interplanetary Programs:
NONE
Earth-Monitoring and Civil Weather Satellite programs:
NONE
Commercial Programs:
1995 – LAUNCH FAILURE: Gemstar I, LM Athena-1 (LMLV-1), SLC6, VAFB- FAILURE, Thrust vector control system, guidance system – MILESTONE: 30 years ago
Test, ICBM, FBM programs:
1963 – LAUNCH: MM Titan I, 395-A1, VAFB
Other:
NONE
The photo today is of Athena-1 with the Gemstar 1 payload on the pad at VAFB in 1995. The mission failed due to two separate failure mechanisms. The photo came from a public domain photo database (Wayback machine) from NASA archives. Here’s a brief description of the failures from Wikipedia:
On August 15, 1995, an Athena-1 rocket (vehicle DLV), failed during launch. Expended hydraulic fluid burned in first stage aft section, damaging nozzle feedback cables causing loss of gimbal control and tumbling. Separately, arcing in the IMU high-voltage power supply caused loss of attitude reference. Flight terminated by range safety officer at T+160 s.
