Tag Archives: apollo

Spacelab Mission, Plus Space History Tidbits

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Twenty-five years ago today — July 29, 1985 — the Space Shuttle Challenger lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-51F. During the launch, the number one main engine shut down ahead of schedule; NASA declared an “Abort To Orbit,” but was able to re-plan the mission to complete all of its objectives.

Astronauts Charles G. Fullerton, Roy D. Bridges, Karl G. Henize, Anthony W. England, F. Story Musgrave, Loren W. Acton and John-David E Bartoe conducted life sciences, plasma physics, astronomy, and other experiments in the Spacelab-2 module before returning to earth on August 6th. They landed at Edwards Air Force Base.


(STS-51F landing at Edwards AFB (August 6, 1985). NASA image.)

(Of personal interest: When we were stationed at Edwards later in the 80s, General Bridges was the AF Flight Test Center commander. We only met him a couple of times, but his son was part of the Protestant Youth of the Chapel group we helped lead.)

Now, for those space history tidbits:

On July 29, 1955 — 55 years ago today — the White House announced the upcoming International Geophysical Year (IGY), for which the U.S. planned to launch a satellite. As you know, the Soviets’ Sputnik beat us to it.

Around this date 50 years ago — one source said July 29, another July 28 — NASA announced that the program aimed at the moon would be named “Apollo.” The name had actually been suggested six months earlier by NASA engineer Abe Silverstein. (Note that this was before President Kennedy was elected, and therefore long before he announced his support of the lunar landing program.)

Finally, on this date 50 years ago — July 29, 1960 — the first unmanned Mercury launch was attempted from Cape Canaveral. Mercury-Atlas-1 (MA-1) exploded at about eight miles altitude. We still had a long way to go.

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Apollo-Soyuz

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Thirty-five years ago today — July 15, 1975 — the two spacecraft of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project were launched.


(Soyuz spacecraft, as seen from the Apollo spacecraft. NASA image. A higher-resolution image is available here.)

The Soviet Union launched Soyuz-19 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, carrying cosmonauts Alexei A. Leonov and Valeri N. Kubasov.

The USA launched its ASTP contribution from Cape Canaveral atop a Saturn-1B launch vehicle. Astronauts Thomas P. Stafford, Vance D. Brand, and Donald K. Slayton docked with Soyuz-19 two days later in the first-ever international space docking.

Unfortunately for space enthusiasts, it was also the final flight of an Apollo spacecraft flight.

[BREAK, BREAK]

In tangentially related news, Donald K. “Deke” Slayton plays an important role in my alternate history story, “Memorial at Copernicus,” which is slated to appear in an upcoming issue of the online magazine Redstone Science Fiction.

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Another Apollo Boilerplate Mission

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Forty-five years ago today — May 25, 1965 — NASA launched Apollo boilerplate mission BP-26 from Cape Canaveral. This mission, like the previous mission in February, carried a satellite experiment.


(Launch of Pegasus-2, 3:35 a.m. EDT, May 25, 1965. NASA image.)

The Pegasus 2, like its predecessor, had large wings that detected impacts from micrometeoroids. The boilerplate Apollo command and service module acted as a protective shroud over the Pegasus experiment during launch.

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Triskaidekalunia — The Launch of Apollo-13

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Forty years ago today — April 11, 1970 — the Apollo-13 mission launched from Cape Canaveral. Astronauts James A. Lovell, Jr., John L. “Jack” Swigert, Jr., and Fred W. Haise, Jr., were on their way to the Fra Mauro region of the moon.


(Apollo-13 launch. NASA image.)

Everything went well for the first two days, but on April 13th the Apollo-13 Service Module suffered a crippling explosion. The number two oxygen tank ruptured, causing a cascade of failures throughout the spacecraft’s systems — including the loss of all the oxygen from the number one tank as well.


(View of the damaged Service Module, taken by the Apollo-13 crew. NASA image.)

NASA aborted the Moon landing and turned their full attention to getting the astronauts home alive. The crew splashed down successfully on April 17th.

This page has a good explanation of the cause of the accident.

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Apollo Boilerplate Mission: Micrometeoroid Detection

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Forty-five years ago today — February 16, 1965 — the Apollo boilerplate mission SA-9 launched from Cape Canaveral. The Saturn-I booster carried a “boilerplate” Apollo capsule and tried out elements of the Apollo launch sequence, but also carried its first live payload: the Pegasus-1 micrometeoroid detection satellite.


(Wernher von Braun in front of a Saturn-IB rocket, 1968. NASA image.)

The Pegasus-1 spacecraft was equipped with large wings — 29.3 x 4.3 meters, nearly 100 feet by 14 — that detected impacts by micrometeoroids in the flight regime through which Apollo astronauts would fly on their way to the Moon. This Wikipedia page has more information on the Pegasus itself.

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Space History Today: Prep Flight for Apollo-Soyuz

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Thirty-five years ago today — December 2, 1974 — cosmonauts Anatoliy V. Filipchenko and Nikolai N. Rukavishnikov launched from Baikonur aboard Soyuz-16. Their flight was a pathfinder for the upcoming Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975, and was the only manned test flight leading up to the joint US-USSR mission.

Fascinating details about the Soyuz-16 mission, including some of the geopolitical considerations, can be found on this page.

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Four Launches: Scout, Thor-Delta, Atlas-Centaur, Titan

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This day in space history, November 21, was a busy day for launches. They were launched at five-year intervals, but still …

Today in 1964 — 45 years ago — NASA launched its first dual payload when it sent up Explorer-24 and Explorer-25 on a Scout rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base.


(A Scout vehicle launch from 1967. National Air & Space Museum image.)

Forty years ago today, in 1969, the United Kingdom sent up its first communications satellite. Skynet-1 launched on a Thor-Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral.

On November 21, 1974 — 35 years ago — an Atlas-Centaur rocket launched from Cape Canaveral carrying the Intelsat IV F-8 communications satellite.

And 30 years ago today, in 1979, a Titan-IIIC rocket out of Cape Canaveral sent up two Defense Satellite Communication System satellites, DSCS II-13 and DSCS II-14.

We shouldn’t forget, of course, that 40 years ago today the U.S. also had astronauts returning from the moon. Mission Commander Charles Conrad, Jr., Command Module pilot Richard F. Gordon, and Lunar Module pilot Alan L. Bean made their transearth injection at 3:49 p.m. EST on November 21st, 1969.

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Space History: The Moon, Then and Now

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Forty years ago today — November 14, 1969 — astronauts Charles Conrad, Jr., Alan L. Bean, and Richard F. Gordon, Jr., blasted off atop Saturn V rocket SA-507 on Apollo-12, the second lunar landing mission. President Richard Nixon attended, and became the first U.S. President to attend a launch.


(Apollo-12 launch. NASA image.)

On the ascent, the Saturn V was hit by lightning while it passed through a low cloud. This was the first such event in the program; the electrical discharge passed through the Saturn vehicle to the ground. After NASA confirmed the lightning had done no damage, the crew proceeded to the Moon.


(Apollo-12 mission logo. NASA image.)

While Gordon orbited in the Command Module “Yankee Clipper,” Conrad and Bean descended to the lunar surface on the 19th of November in the Lunar Module “Intrepid.” They landed on Oceanus Procellarum, the “Ocean of Storms,” and began their excursions. The mission included several milestones:

  • First time the surface crew went out on two EVA periods.
  • Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP) deployed for the first time.
  • First time a geologist planned lunar surface activities in real time.
  • First-ever return of spacecraft parts from the lunar surface: from the Surveyor-3 lander.
  • First multi-spectral imagery of lunar terrain from lunar orbit.

That was then, and this is now: If you didn’t catch the news from NASA yesterday, the recent LCROSS mission confirmed the presence of water in the shadowed crater Cabeus at the Moon’s south pole. This is great news for future lunar exploration — and for those of us who have written stories about lunar exploration!

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Lunar Landing Research, 45 Years Ago

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Forty-five years ago today — October 30, 1964 — NASA pilot Joseph Walker took off from the South Base area of Edwards Air Force Base on the first flight in a Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV).


(LLRV in flight. NASA image ECN-506, from the NASA Dryden photo collection.)

Walker flew the vehicle three times that day; his total flight time was just under 60 seconds, and he reached a peak altitude of about ten feet. That may not sound too impressive, but think about how difficult the thing must have been to fly:

Built of aluminum alloy trusses and shaped like a giant four-legged bedstead, …. the LLRV had a General Electric CF-700-2V turbofan engine mounted vertically in a gimbal, with 4,200 pounds of thrust. The engine got the vehicle up to the test altitude and was then throttled back to support five-sixths of the vehicle’s weight, simulating the reduced gravity of the moon. Two hydrogen peroxide lift rockets with thrust that could be varied from 100 to 500 pounds handled the LLRV’s rate of descent and horizontal movement. Sixteen smaller hydrogen peroxide rockets, mounted in pairs, gave the pilot control in pitch, yaw and roll.

And remember, all of this was done with primitive computers by today’s standards. Today, we might build it so that a control computer would measure the vehicle’s movements and its shifting center of gravity, and compensate automatically; they didn’t have that luxury, which to me makes their accomplishment even more impressive.

Eventually the three LLRVs were sent to Houston, and joined by two Lunar Landing Training Vehicles (LLTVs), which lunar module pilots used to train for the descent to the moon. Without them, the Apollo lunar landings would have been much more difficult — maybe impossible.

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Apollo Test Launch, 45 Years Ago, and Lunar Mapping Today

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Forty-five years ago today — September 18, 1964 — NASA launched a Saturn-1 booster from Cape Canaveral in mission SA-7, also known as Apollo “Boiler Plate 15.” The launch demonstrated the Launch Escape System (LES) for the first time.

Anything Apollo-related of course reminds me of the moon, but I’ll skip the shameless plug in favor of some exciting news about the current LRO mission:

After two months of checkout and calibration, NASA’s $504 million Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter was maneuvered into a circular 31-mile-high mapping orbit Tuesday and scientists said Thursday the spacecraft’s instruments are delivering intriguing clues about the possible presence of water ice.

The exciting news and “intriguing clues” are indications that hydrogen deposits may exist not only in permanently-shadowed craters near the south pole, but elsewhere on the moon as well — perhaps buried under lunar soil. Whether they’re water, or ammonia, or methane, or something else is unclear, but there appears to be something there, and probably something useful. Read the whole Spaceflight Now report here.

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