Category Archives: Space

Radio Astronomy Explorer One

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Fortyfive years ago today — July 4, 1968 — a Thor Delta rocket launched from Vandenberg AFB carrying the latest in NASA’s Explorer series of spacecraft.


(A technician checks Explorer 38. NASA image.)

Radio Astronomy Explorer 1, also known as Explorer 38, was designed to observe celestial radio sources — natural sources like the sun — and record the intensity of their signals over time. Despite several malfunctions, including degradation of its tape recorder, the spacecraft produced good data for scientists to examine.

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Unfortunate Japanese Mission to Mars

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Fifteen years ago today — July 3, 1998 — Japan launched an M-5 rocket from the Kagoshima Space Center carrying the Nozomi spacecraft on its way to the Red Planet.


(Nozomi. Image from the National Space Science Data Center.)

Nozomi (meaning “Hope”) was originally known as “Planet B,” and was Japan’s first space probe sent to orbit Mars. It carried instruments to study the Martian atmosphere, but unfortunately a propulsion system malfunction during its swing by Earth on December 20, 1998, ultimately prevented the spacecraft from entering orbit.

To try to save the mission, operators developed a contingency plan by which Nozomi would

remain in heliocentric orbit for an additional four years, including two Earth flybys in December 2002 and June 2003, and encounter Mars at a slower relative velocity in December 2003.

However, another snag occurred in April 2002, as Nozomi was approaching another Earth flyby, when

powerful solar flares damaged the spacecraft’s onboard communications and power systems. An electrical short was caused in a power cell used to control the attitude control heating system which allowed the hydrazine fuel to freeze. The fuel thawed out as the craft approached Earth and maneuvers to put the craft on the correct trajectory for its Earth flyby were successful.

Operators guided Nozomi through the next Earth flyby in June 2003, but as the spacecraft approached Mars in December, it could not be put in the correct orientation to fire its main thruster for orbital insertion. As a result, Nozomi flew by Mars on December 14, 2003.

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First Ocean-Watching Radar Satellite

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Thirty-five years ago today — June 27, 1978 — an Atlas-Agena launch vehicle out of Vandenberg AFB carried the SeaSat-1 observation satellite to orbit.


(SeaSat 1. NASA image.)

SeaSat 1, also known as the Ocean Dynamics Satellite, was “designed to provide measurements of sea-surface winds, sea-surface temperatures, wave heights, internal waves, atmospheric liquid water content, sea ice features, ocean features, ocean topography, and the marine geoid.”

SeaSat 1 was the first synthetic aperture radar satellite designed to monitor the oceans from space, but unfortunately a “massive short circuit in its electrical system” in October 1978 cut the mission short. Nevertheless, SeaSat 1 “returned a unique and extensive set of observations of the earth’s oceans” and, according to this mission page, also demonstrated “the feasibility of global satellite monitoring of oceanographic phenomena and [helped] determine the requirements for an operational ocean remote sensing satellite system.”

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First Spacehab Flight

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Twenty years ago today — June 21, 1993 — the Space Shuttle Endeavour launched from the Kennedy Space Center carrying the Spacehab module for the first time.


(STS-57 astronauts took this shot of the Nile River delta and the eastern Mediterranean Sea. NASA image.)

Astronauts Ronald J. Grabe, Brian Duffy, G. David Low, Nancy J. Sherlock, Peter J. Wisoff, and Janice E. Voss spent a little over 9 days in space on mission STS-57. They conducted nearly two dozen experiments in the Spacehab, “a pressurized laboratory designed to more than double pressurized workspace for crew-tended experiments.”

In addition, the crew retrieved the European Retrievable Carrier (EURECA), which had been deployed on STS-46. The retrieval was complicated when the spacecraft’s antennas had to be manually folded during an EVA.

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First Titan 34D Launch from Vandenberg

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Thirty years ago today — June 20, 1983 — a pair of satellites were launched from Vandenberg AFB atop a Titan 34D booster.


(Titan 34D launching from Cape Canaveral. DoD image from Wikimedia Commons.)

Launched from Space Launch Complex (SLC, pronounced “slick”) 4-East, the two DoD satellites were designated 1983-060A (or 14137) and 1983-060C (or 14139), but a 2011 Space Review article identified the primary payload of this particular launch as a KH-9 reconnaissance satellite. The Titan 34D Wikipedia page notes the June 1983 launch as the first Vandenberg launch for the 34D configuration.

As an old Titan System Program Office guy, I’d just as soon end there, but as an old Vandenberg guy I’ll toss in another space anniversary: On this date 5 years ago, the French and U.S. Jason 2 satellite was launched from Vandenberg on a Delta II rocket. Jason 2 was designed to monitor oceanic conditions from space, and was “a cooperative mission involving the French CNES, the European EUMETSAT, and the American NOAA and NASA.”

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Sally Ride’s Historic Spaceflight

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Thirty years ago today — June 18, 1983 — the Space Shuttle Challenger launched from the Kennedy Space Center on an historic mission for the U.S. astronaut corps.


(Sally Ride on the shuttle flightdeck. NASA image.)

The STS-7 crew consisted of Robert L. Crippen, Frederick B. Hauck, John M. Fabian, Norman E. Thagard, and Sally K. Ride, who became the first female U.S. astronaut to fly into space.

The shuttle crew launched the Anik C-2 and Palapa B-1 communication satellites, launched and retrieved the Shuttle Pallet Satellite with its ten experiments, and performed other experiments. They spent a little over 6 days in space, and traveled about 2.5 million miles.

It’s interesting to note that the first U.S. woman in space flew only 20 years and 2 days after the first female cosmonaut. As a patriotic American, I’m more inclined to attribute that to USSR propaganda purposes than nefarious motives in our space program, but do with it what you will.

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First Woman in Space: Valentina Tereshkova’s Flight

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Fifty years ago today — June 16, 1963 — Vostok 6 carried Soviet cosmonaut Valentina V. Tereshkova to orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.


(Valentina Tereshkova. Image from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.)

As noted, Tereshkova was the first woman in space. The Vostok 6 mission was the last in the Soviet Union’s first series of manned spaceflights, and lasted for three days.

Tereshkova’s flight was concurrent with Vostok 5, which had launched two days earlier carrying cosmonaut Valery F. Bykovsky. The two spacecraft orbited together and maintained radio communications with each other. Both spacecraft de-orbited on June 19th. Tereshkova landed northeast of Karaganda, Kazakhstan, after completing 48 orbits; Bykovsky landed northwest of Karaganda after completing 81 orbits and “[setting] a Soviet manned duration record of 119 hr 6 min.”

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Pioneer Leaves the Solar System

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Thirty years ago today — June 13, 1983 — the Pioneer 10 spacecraft left the solar system, becoming the first man-made object to pass beyond the farthest planet from the Sun.


(Pioneer. NASA image.)

At the time, Pluto was still considered a planet but its eccentric orbit had it inside the orbit of Neptune. So when Pioneer 10 passed beyond Neptune’s orbit, it became the first spacecraft to travel farther from the sun than our system’s planets.

In other space history, 5 years ago this week* — on June 11, 2008 — the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta-II rocket. Originally called the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, Fermi was designed to conduct a sky survey of gamma ray sources. Its mission objectives were to

(1) explore the most extreme environments in the universe;
(2) search for signs of new laws of physics and understand the composition of dark matter;
(3) study the acceleration of relativistic velocity jets of material by black holes;
(4) detect and collect data on gamma-ray bursts; and,
(5) help gain a better understanding of other cosmic phenomena, such as solar flares, pulsars, and the origin of cosmic rays.

Fermi is still operating, and you can learn more about it and its discoveries here.

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*Missed posting this on the actual anniversary because of problems accessing the National Space Science Data Center.

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The Spirit Rover Begins Its Martian Journey

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Ten years ago today — June 10, 2003 — a Delta 2 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral carrying Mars Exploration Rover A, or “Spirit.”


(“Spirit” Mars Exploration Rover. NASA image.)

Spirit was one of two rovers designed to traverse the Martian surface to search for evidence of life, characterize the Martian climate and geology, and improve our understanding of Mars in advance of sending people to explore. Spirit’s twin, named “Opportunity,” launched a month later. Their mission’s scientific objectives were to:

1) search for and characterize a variety of rocks and soils that hold clues to past water activity,
2) determine the distribution and composition of minerals, rocks, and soils surrounding the landing sites,
3) determine what geologic processes have shaped the local terrain and influenced the chemistry,
4) perform “ground truth” of surface observations made by Mars orbiter instruments,
5) search for iron-bearing minerals, identify and quantify relative amounts of specific mineral types that contain water or were formed in water,
6) characterize the mineralogy and textures of rocks and soils and determine the processes that created them, and
7) search for geological clues to the environmental conditions that existed when liquid water was present and assess whether those environments were conducive to life.

The rovers landed successfully on Mars in January 2004. They originally were only supposed to operate for 90 Martian days (a little over 92 Earth days), but Spirit operated until March 2010 and Opportunity is still going.

In other space history …

The same day Spirit launched, Sea Launch placed the Thuraya 2 communications satellite in orbit from the Odyssey platform. Thuraya 2 is owned by the United Arab Emitrates, and provides service to the Middle East, India, etc., from geostationary orbit.*

And on this date 40 years ago, the Radio Astronomy Explorer B — also known as Explorer 49 — launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta rocket. Its sister spacecraft, RAE-A (or Explorer 38), had been launched in July 1968. RAE-B conducted radio atronomy from an orbit around the Moon, and operated until 1977.

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*Noted primarily because I like Sea Launch, having gone on one of their launch campaigns.

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Venera 16

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Thirty years ago today — June 7, 1983, UTC — the USSR launched the second of the paired Venera 15 and 16 orbiters from the Baikonur Cosmodrome atop a Proton K booster.


(Venera 15/16 model. Image from the National Space Science Data Center.)

Like its identical sister ship, Venera 16 used a side-scanning synthetic aperture radar to study the surface of Venus. Venera 16 was launched a few days after Venera 15, and the two spacecraft entered orbit around Venus a day apart in October 1983. Their mapping mission lasted until July 1984.

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