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 2007
No milestone events (5 to 65+ years ago)
Human Spaceflight:
1983 – LANDING: STS-8 (Challenger), Edwards AFB
1984 – LANDING: STS-41-D (Discovery), Edwards AFB
Military and Classified Programs:
1988 – LAUNCH: USA 32, MM Titan II/SLV, SLC4W, VAFB- First launch of Titan II/SLV
Exploration and Interplanetary Programs:
1977 – LAUNCH: Voyager 1, MM Titan IIIE/GD Centaur, LC41, CCAFS – Jupiter and Saturn fly-bys, escape from the solar system, Voyager 1 is still operational in September, 2023
2002 – NASA awards the contract worth $824 million for the Webb/Next generation telescope to TRW (now Northrop Grumman); Lockheed Martin loses out on successor to HST. JWST finally launched on December 25, 2021, with a total cost estimated at $10 billion (including operations).
Earth-Monitoring and Civil Weather Satellite programs:
1964 – LAUNCH: OGO-1, GD Atlas/Lockheed Agena D, LC12, CCAFS – orbiting geophysical observatory
Commercial Programs:
2007 – LAUNCH FAILURE: LM JCSAT-11, Proton-M/Briz-M, LC200/39, Baikonur, Kazakhstan – Second stage engine
Test, ICBM, FBM programs:
1964 – LAUNCH: Lockheed Polaris A3, SSBN631, ETR
Other:
NONE
The photos today are from two missions: First, there is a photo of the launch of Voyager 1 in 1977 by a Titan IIIE/Centaur vehicle. The spacecraft is still active as of this day in 2025. Voyager 1 did fly-bys of Jupiter, Saturn and the Saturnian moon Titan. Voyager 1 is nearly 15.7 billion miles away or almost one full light day. Photo Credit: NASA.
Second, there is a photo the first Titan II/SLV launch vehicle on the pad at VAFB before the launch of USA-32 in 1988. This photo was found on Wikipedia and is attributed to a USAF press release and was released to the public domain (Photo Credit: USAF).
