Tag Archives: nasa

Space History, 95 Years Ago

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Most people know about NASA, even though some may be hard pressed to recite what it stands for: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I suspect many people forget about, or may not even know about, its predecessor, the NACA, established by Congress on this day in history, 1915.


(Monochrome NACA logo, from Wikimedia Commons.)

The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics had very humble beginnings.

Congress founded NACA on 3 March 1915, as an independent government agency reporting directly to the President. Its enacting legislation was attached as a rider to the Naval Appropriation Bill for that year. Unlike NASA, NACA began almost without anyone noticing. It started simply, with a chairman, Brigadier General George Scriven, chief of the Army’s Signal Corps, a main committee of 12 members representing the government, military, and industry, an executive committee with 7 members, chosen from the main committee, and one employee, John F. Victory. Committee members were not paid and served only in an advisory capacity, meeting a few times a year to direct the aim of the new organization. Initially, the task of the committee was to coordinate efforts already underway across the nation. However, its mission and workforce soon grew to cover a greater role in aeronautics research in the U.S.

And, grew into the NASA we know today.

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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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Valentine's Day Space History: Solar Max, and a Near-Earth Asteroid

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Thirty years ago today — February 14, 1980 — a Delta rocket out of Cape Canaveral launched the Solar Maximum Mission to study the Sun during the peak of the 11-year solar cycle.


(The SMM spacecraft in orbit. NASA image.)

The SMM satellite malfunctioned in January 1981, but in April 1984 it was recovered by the space shuttle Challenger and serviced in orbit. After it was released, it continued functioning until it reentered the Earth’s atmosphere in December 1989.


(The SMM satellite being repaired in the shuttle cargo bay. NASA image.)

And 10 years ago, on Valentine’s Day 2000, the NEAR spacecraft — Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous, also known as “NEAR Shoemaker” in honor of astronomer Eugene Shoemaker — entered orbit around the asteroid Eros. NEAR studied Eros for a year before landing on the asteroid in February 2001.

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Japan Joins the Space Club, Endeavour Scans the Earth

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Forty years ago today — February 11, 1970 — Japan launched its first satellite, Ohsumi, from the Uchinoura Space Center. Ohsumi was a small technology demonstrator, with only a few instruments on board, but its success made Japan only the fourth nation (after the U.S.S.R, the U.S.A., and France) to successfully place a payload in orbit.

Thirty years later, in 2000, Japanese astronaut Mamoru Mohri launched into orbit aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour on mission STS-99, his second spaceflight. Mohri joined U.S. astronauts Kevin R. Kregel, Dominic L. Pudwill Gorie, Janet L. Kavandi, and Janice E. Voss, as well as Gerhard P. J. Thiele of Germany, on the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM).


(SRTM in the shuttle cargo bay. NASA image.)

Over its 11-day mission, the SRTM mapped over 99% of the earth’s land area between 60 degrees N latitude and 56 degrees S latitude. The SRTM instrument consisted of a large radar array in the shuttle cargo bay and a smaller antenna mounted on an extendable mast: the mast, the longest rigid structure yet flown in space, placed the secondary antenna 200 feet (60 meters) outside the shuttle. The configuration caused an increase in fuel consumption as the shuttle had to “offset the gravity gradient torque of the mast,” but they were able to compensate and complete the mapping mission.

Endeavour is in orbit today on mission STS-130, its next-to-last mission to the International Space Station. Fare thee well.

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Passing By Venus — We Were in the Neighborhood …

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Twenty years ago today — February 9, 1990* — the Galileo spacecraft flew by Venus in a course-adjustment maneuver on its way to Jupiter. The probe passed about 10,000 miles (16,000 km) above our sister planet.


(Venus images from the Galileo spacecraft, taken through violet and infrared filters. NASA image.)

The Venus flyby gave the mission team the chance to test out Galileo‘s cameras and instruments in preparation for its encounter with Jupiter. The “gravity-assist” of the spacecraft swinging around the planet boosted Galileo’s speed and set it on an intercept course with … Earth. Two similar maneuvers around our home planet would eventually place the spacecraft on course for its final destination.

Here’s the press release on the flyby, which is kind of interesting, and here’s a gallery of images from the encounter.

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*February 9th on the West Coast, where the Jet Propulsion Laboratory was controlling the mission; it was already February 10th on the East Coast. (If that matters to you.)

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DISCOVERY Launches on First DoD Shuttle Mission

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Twenty-five years ago today — January 24, 1985, the Space Shuttle Discovery launched from Kennedy Space Center on mission STS-51C.


(Launch of mission STS-51C. NASA image.)

The crew — Thomas K. Mattingly, Loren J. Shriver, Ellison S. Onizuka, James F. Buchli and Gary E. Payton — used an Air Force Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) booster to place a classified Department of Defense satellite in orbit, making this the first dedicated DoD mission.

Space enthusiasts will recognize some of those astronauts’ names. Many know that Ken Mattingly, for instance, was originally scheduled to fly on the Apollo-13 mission; he later flew as the Command Module pilot for Apollo-16 and the mission commander for STS-4, the fourth space shuttle orbital test flight. And many will recognize Ellison Onizuka as one of the astronauts who died in the Challenger explosion in 1986.

My personal connection to this flight, however, is Gary Payton. He’s been the Deputy Under Secretary of the Air Force for Space Programs since 2005, and I worked with him when I was writing speeches for the Under Secretary, Dr. Sega. I found Mr. Payton to be a terrific person, extremely smart and talented.

As I said in my retirement speech, if I couldn’t be an astronaut, at least I got to work with a few of them.

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Remote Sensing, 60s- 70s-Style

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Forty-five years ago today — January 22, 1965 — the Tiros-9 satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral atop a Delta rocket.

(Tiros satellite. Lockheed Martin image from JPL Mission & Spacecraft Library. Click to enlarge.)

Tiros-9 was the first of the Television Infrared Observation Satellite (TIROS) series to be launched into a polar orbit. Intended for a sun-synchronous orbit, it ended up in a highly elliptical orbit due to a failure in the onboard guidance system. Tiros-9 was also the first meteorological satellite to operate in a “cartwheel” fashion in which the “spacecraft spin axis was maintained normal to the orbital plane” by means of electromagnetic torque between an electrical circuit loop in the vehicle and the earth’s magnetic field. Tiros-9 suffered a series of system failures and ultimately retired from service in February 1967.

Ten years after Tiros-9, and on the other side of the continent, Landsat-2 — another remote sensing spacecraft — launched from Vandenberg AFB. Landsat-2 also launched on a Delta rocket. As proof of how much had been learned about spacecraft design in the interim, Landsat-2 remained operational over three times as long as Tiros-9: it retired from service in February 1982.

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Mercury Abort Test, 50 Years Ago

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First off, thanks to everybody who commented on the space history quasi-series, whether here, on Twitter, or on Facebook. (I got no LinkedIn comments, but it isn’t quite as convenient for communicating.) I appreciate the feedback!

Now, for today’s entry …

A half-century ago today (which is hard to write because I’m getting closer to that age every day) — January 21, 1960 — NASA launched the Little Joe 1B test vehicle from Wallops Island, VA.


(Little Joe 1B launch. NASA image.)

Like the Little Joe 2 launch a few weeks before,* which I blogged about here, this test of the Mercury abort system carried a rhesus monkey. In this case, the passenger was “Miss Sam,” the mate of “Sam” who had flown on the previous launch.


(“Miss Sam” in her protective couch, prior to the Little Joe 1B launch. NASA image from Wikimedia Commons.)

“Miss Sam”‘s launch only placed her about 9 miles in altitude, however, so she did not earn her astronaut wings.

For a fascinating history of animals (especially monkeys!) in space, check out this NASA page.

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*The Little Joe launches were not in numerical order, for some reason.

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Deep Impact (the Launch)

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Five years ago today — January 12, 2005 — the Deep Impact probe launched atop a Delta 2 rocket from Cape Canaveral, on its way to a rendezvous with comet Tempel 1.


(Deep Impact launch. Kennedy Space Center/Elizabeth Warner photo, from NASA/University of Maryland mission site.)

The spacecraft flew by the comet on July 4, 2005, and released an “impactor” that struck the comet to help determine its composition. (More on that when that anniversary comes around.)

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Space History Just-in-Time Pickup: Shuttle Retrieves LDEF

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Twenty years ago today — January 11, 1990 — Space Shuttle Columbia retrieved the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) as one of the key objectives of mission STS-32.

(STS-32 mission patch. NASA image. Click to enlarge.)

Columbia had launched on January 9th from the Kennedy Space Center, carrying astronauts Daniel C. Brandenstein, James D. Wetherbee, Bonnie J.Dunbar, Marsha S. Ivins, and G. David Low. The astronauts deployed the defense communications satellite Syncom IV-5 shortly after achieving orbit, then maneuvered the shuttle for the rendezvous with the LDEF.


(Long Duration Exposure Facility at the end of the shuttle’s manipulator arm. NASA image from Wikimedia Commons.)

According to this LDEF archive site,

NASA’s Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) was designed to provide long-term data on the space environment and its effects on space systems and operations….

LDEF had a nearly cylindrical structure, and its 57 experiments were mounted in 86 trays about its periphery and on the two ends. The spacecraft measured 30 feet by 14 feet and weighed ~21,500 pounds with mounted experiments, and remains one of the largest Shuttle-deployed payloads….

LDEF was deployed in orbit on April 7, 1984 by the Shuttle Challenger. The nearly circular orbit was at an altitude of 275 nautical miles and an inclination of 28.4 degrees…. LDEF remained in space for ~5.7 years and completed 32,422 Earth orbits…. It experienced one-half of a solar cycle, as it was deployed during a solar minimum and retrieved at a solar maximum.

And what made its recover “just-in-time” was the fact that it was about to fall from the sky.

… By the time LDEF was retrieved, its orbit had decayed to ~175 nautical miles and was a little more than one month away from reentering the Earth’s atmosphere.

Shuttle Columbia landed with the LDEF on January 20, 1990 at Edwards Air Force Base — where yours truly was again part of the USAF shuttle recovery team. Another good mission, another chance to dream.

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