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 1996
Two milestone events (5 to 65+ years ago)
Human Spaceflight:
1990 – LAUNCH: STS-31 (Discovery), LC39B, KSC- 5 person crew; deployed Lockheed Hubble Space Telescope. Crew: Loren Shriver, Charles Bolden, Bruce McCandless, Steven Hawley, Kathryn Sullivan. – MILESTONE: 35 years ago
Military and Classified Programs:
1981 – LAUNCH: Classified mission, MM Titan k34B, SLC4W, VAFB
1996 – LAUNCH: USA 118, LM Titan IVA (401)/Centaur, LC41, CCAFS
Exploration and Interplanetary Programs:
NONE
Earth-Monitoring and Civil Weather Satellite programs:
NONE
Commercial Programs:
NONE
Test, ICBM, FBM programs:
1963 – LAUNCH: GD Atlas E, OSTF-1, VAFB
1972 – LAUNCH: Lockheed Polaris A3, SSBN599, ETR
1975 – LAUNCH: Lockheed Poseidon C3, SSBN633, ETR – MILESTONE: 50 years ago
1978 – LAUNCH (4): Lockheed Poseidon C3, SSBN645, ETR
1982 – LAUNCH: Lockheed Trident C4, SSBN643, ETR
1983 – LAUNCH: MM Pershing 2, Fort Bliss, Texas
2002 – LAUNCH (2): LM Trident D5, SSBN743, ETR
Other:
NONE
The photos today are from two events. First, there are photos from the ST-31 mission in 1990 (35 years ago) and include the launch (with STS-35 on the other pad), the crew, and the deployment of Hubble Space Telescope from Discovery. This was the last space mission for Bruce McCandless II.
The second set of photos are of the Titan IVA/Centaur (401) vehicle on the pad and during launch on this day in 1996. This mission had a classified payload. The photos were found in the National Archives database and are labeled cleared for any distribution; the photos came from a DoD archive.
