On April 5, 1990, the first live launch of a Pegasus rocket carried the PEGSAT experimental satellite into orbit. (July 1991 picture of a Pegasus rocket being carried by NASA's B-52. NASA image.) PEGSAT was an interesting combination of an instrumentation package to monitor this first Pegasus launch; a small Navy communications relay satellite; and a science experiment involving ...
Today in space history, 45 years ago -- March 9, 1965 -- a Thor-Agena D-model rocket launched eight satellites at once from Vandenberg AFB. (A 1962 Thor-Agena-D launch. USAF image from Wikimedia Commons.) Not only was it the first time eight spacecraft had been launched at the same time, but one of those satellites -- Oscar-3 -- was the first ...
Five years ago today -- November 16, 2004 -- the X-43A hypersonic test vehicle broke the world speed record. (X-43A initial velocity was provided by a Pegasus rocket. NASA image.) Its scramjet engine accelerated it to mach 9.6, nearly 7,000 miles per hour. The record it broke was its own, of mach 6.8 (nearly 5,000 mph), set on a March 2004 flight. Of personal interest ...
Forty-five years ago today -- August 19, 1964 -- a Thor Delta rocket launched the Syncom-3 satellite out of Cape Canaveral. (Syncom-3 satellite. Image from NASA's Space Science Data Center.) The rocket was the first Delta to use strap-on solid rocket motors, and the spacecraft was the first geostationary satellite. Its predecessor, Syncom-2, had been the first geosynchronous satellite, the difference ...
Updated 08-19-2009 at 07:19 AM by Gray Rinehart
Forty years ago today -- August 9, 1969 -- an LTTAT-Delta rocket launched from Cape Canaveral carrying the sixth Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO-6). According to the National Space Science Data Center, "OSO 6 was the sixth in a series of satellites designed to conduct solar physics experiments above the earth's atmosphere during a complete solar cycle." The spacecraft operated successfully until the end of 1972. One curious thing: the first source on which I found the OSO-6 ...
Blog Categories
Go to Profile
Mark as Read