This Day in Spaceflight History

[The Raging Sandwich]

October 20

1970: Zond 8 launched to the Moon with no crew onboard. It was the last circumlunar flight for the Zond. It flew past the moon on October 24. It took pictures of the Earth for three days before it got to the Moon and then proceeded to take either black and white or color photos of the Moon. On October 26, it tried a double-dib reentry, where it came in over the northern icecap at a shallow angle, bounced off the atmosphere, and proceeded to come in over Russia.

1983: Progress 18 launched into orbit to the Salyut 7 space station. It was an unmanned Soyuz-like probe to deliver cargo to the station. It docked to the station on October 22. It boosted the station's orbit on November 4. It undocked on November 13 and reentered Earth's atmopshere on November 16.

1995: STS-73 and its crew of 7 launched into Earth orbit on a 16-day mission. It carried with it Spacelab USML-2 and conducted experiments inside it during the mission.

Edited October 21, 2016 by The Raging Sandwich

[insert_name]

progress doesn't return to the earth it undergoes destructive rentry

[cubinator]

21 minutes ago, insert_name said:

progress doesn't return to the earth it undergoes destructive rentry

It does return, then, just not in one piece.

[The Raging Sandwich]

2 hours ago, insert_name said:

progress doesn't return to the earth it undergoes destructive rentry

Technically it does like @cubinator said, but I'll fix it.

[DDE]

@The Raging Sandwich @cubinator @insert_name Technically Progress ships have a spring-loaded ejection system for a small return capsule in the access hatch.

[The Raging Sandwich]

October 21

1950: US Shuttle astronaut Dr. Ronald McNair was born. He flew on STS-41-b and STS-51-L, where he died in the Challenger accident.

1998: An Ariane 5 rocket launched the ARD, an 80% scale of the Apollo CM. It was a test for possible return vehicles for crews in the ISS. It deorbited and reentered successfully after its first orbit and splashed down in the Pacific. With it, the rocket carried Maqsat 3, an onboard payload device to monitor the rocket's performance.

 

2001: Soyuz TM-33 and its crew of 3 launched into orbit to the ISS. It docked to the station on October 23. The crew spent just 8 days on the station and left for Earth on the older TM-32. The TM-33 was used as a lifeboat for the other crew.

2007: Soyuz TMA-10 and its crew of 3 landed back at Earth after a mission to the ISS.

 

[The Raging Sandwich]

October 22

1966: Luna 12 was launched. It would achieve lunar orbit on October 25. It conducted multiple experiments in orbit and took photos of the lunar surface which were then transmitted to Earth on October 27. It lost contact on January 19, 1967.

1968: Apollo 7 and its crew of 3 landed back at Earth. It splashed down 8 miles from the Essex. It landed upsidedown but pushed itself upright with the balloon airbags at the top. All mission objectives were met.

1975: Venera 9, a Soviet Venus probe, landed on Venus. It transmitted pictures of Venus' surface to Earth.

1992: STS-52 and its crew of 7 launched into orbit on a 10 day mission. It deployed CTA, a Canadian navigational satellite; and Lageos 2, a geodetic (land surveying) satellite. The crew conducted a dozen experiments during the mission.

 

October 23

1961: Following the flight of the Freedom 7 Mercury mission, NASA presented the Freedom 7 capsule to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Since then it has been shown in multiple places like the US Naval Academy and the J.F.K. Presidential Library.

1989: STS-34 and its crew of 6 land back at Edwards AFB after a mission into orbit deploying the Galileo Jupiter space probe.

2006: Progress M-58 launched to the ISS for a re-supply mission. It docked to the station on October 26. It undocked on March 27, 2007 and deorbited into Earth's atmosphere.

2007: STS-120 and its crew of 7 launched into orbit on a 15 day mission to the ISS. It delivered the Harmony module to the station and to move the P6 truss to its final location. It docked to the station on October 25 38,000 pounds of supplies.

2012: Soyuz TMA-06M and its crew of 3 launched into orbit to the ISS. It docked on October 25. It undocked on March 15, 2013 and deorbited and landed the next day.

Edited October 23, 2016 by The Raging Sandwich

[The Raging Sandwich]

October 24

1851: William Lassel discovered Uranus' moons Umbriel and Ariel.

1958: The first static-test of a rocket at White Sands took place with a Redstone rocket.

1960: A Soviet ICBM R-16 exploded on the Baikanour Launchpad, killing 6 important people in Soviet rocketry. It killed over 100 people overall.

 

1962: Sputnik 22 was launched. It was supposed to flyby Mars but exploded into many pieces, some of which remained in orbit for a while.

1963: Another explosion of an R-9 killed seven people at Baikanour.

1998: NASA's Deep Space 1 probe was launched to test future interplanetary spacecraft systems. It was to do a flyby of a small asteroid 1.3 AU away from the Sun. It then did a flyby of a comet on September 22, 2001.

2000: STS-92 and its crew of 7 landed back at Edwards AFB after a mission to the ISS.

 

2004: Soyuz TMA-4 and its crew of 3 landed back at Earth after a mission to the ISS.

2006: The Messenger spacecraft did its first flyby of the planet Venus.

2007: The Chang'e Chinese lunar probe was launched. It was China's first unmanned interplanetary probe. It did a TLI burn on October 31 and entered lunar orbit on November 5.

 

[The Raging Sandwich]

October 25

1671: astronomer Giovanni Cassini discovered the planet Saturn's moon Iapetus. (Fun fact: also known as Japetus and Bob.)

1935: Original US Space Race astronaut Russell Schweickart was born. He flew on Apollo 9.

1965: The Gemini 6 mission was cancelled until a further date due to the failure of the launch of an Agena target vehicle. Instead, the plans were made to rendezvous with Gemini 7.

1968: Soyuz 2, an unmanned spacecraft, was launched into orbit. It was to be the target vehicle for Soyuz 3 which was to dock with it. However, the docking was a failure. It was reported that a phantom cosmonaut named "Ivan Istachnikov" died while in orbit, but was untrue and made up in 1998.

1975: The Soviet Venera 10 spacecraft touched-down on Venus.

1998: Progress M-40 was launched to the Mir space station. It docked on October 27 and delivered supplies to the crew. It also carried with it Spoutnik-41 a small French communications satellite which the crew deployed by hand during an EVA on November 10.

2006: The Cassini Saturn spacecraft did a flyby of the moon Titan.

 

October 26

1968: Soyuz 3 and its crew of 1 cosmonaut was launched into Earth orbit. It was the second manned Soyuz flight. It was to dock with the unmanned Soyuz 2 but failed to do so. 

2004: the Cassini Saturn spacecraft did its first flyby of the moon Titan, which was successful.

Edited October 26, 2016 by The Raging Sandwich

[The Raging Sandwich]

October 27

1992: The Progress M-15 resupply ship launched into orbit to the Mir space station. It docked with the station on October 29. It carried with it Mak 2, a small ionosphere deployed from the Mir's airlock. It undocked with the station February 4, 1993 and reentered on February 7.

2010: The Progress M-08M resupply ship launched into orbit to the ISS. It delivered supplies for the crews to use. It undocked from the station on January 24, 2011 and reentered the atmosphere on the same day.

[The Raging Sandwich]

October 28

1968: Soyuz 2 landed back at Earth after its unmanned mission into orbit. Soyuz 3 failed to dock with it. A sensor was to find the Sun to orient the spacecraft but failed to do so, wasting fuel and causing the spacecraft to land 45 kilometers away from its intended target.

1970: Zond 8, an unmanned Soviet Soyuz-derived spacecraft, was recovered. It was the only one of the 8 Zonds to reenter over the North Pole. It landed in the ocean, something not common for the Soviet space program.

1974: Luna 23 was launched. It was a lunar soil return mission that failed. it successfully orbited Earth, flew to the Moon, and orbited the Moon, but it was damaged upon landing where no soil retrieving mechanisms could work.

2003: Soyuz TMA-2 and its crew of 3 landed back at Earth after a mission to the ISS.

2005: The Cassini Saturn spacecraft did a flyby of the moon Titan.

2009: Ares I-X was launched. It was the first test flight of the Constellation program. It consisted of a modified Shuttle SRB, a dummy upper stage, and a dummy Ares Command Module, and a launch escape system. It was to test the rocket's aerodynamics in the atmosphere. It went up 46 kilometers in the air and splashed down in the Atlantic for recovery.

 

[The Raging Sandwich]

October 29

1988: The first launch of the Russian space shuttle Buran was attempted. A systems failure 51 seconds before launch prompted the mission to be scrubbed until November 15.

1991: The Galileo spacecraft did a flyby of the asteroid Gaspra during its trip to Jupiter.

1998: STS-95 and its crew of 7 was launched into orbit. One of the crewmembers was John Glenn, the first American in orbit. The flight made him the oldest person in space at 77. It also included the first Spanish astronaut Pedro Duque. It deployed two satellites, the Navy satellite PANSAT on October 30 and a solar corona satellite Spartan 201 on November 1. It was retrieved later on November 3. It landed back at Cape Canaveral on November 7.

2008: The Simon Bolivar spacecraft, the first Venezuelan satellite, was launched. It was a Chinese-made communications satellite.

2014: Progress M-25M was launched into orbit to the ISS to deliver supplies. It docked to the station on the same day. It undocked after it was no longer needed on April 25, 2015 and deorbited and landed on April 26.

[tater]

Odd that anyone would consider a satellite as their first if they neither launched, nor built the spacecraft. It'd be like me taking credit for owning a car, lol.

[The Raging Sandwich]

October 30

1947: One of the most famous US Shuttle astronauts, Robert "Hoot" Gibson, was born.

1964: The Redstone series of missiles was retired from the Army's arsenal.

1967: A Russian unmanned probe that went by the name of Cosmos 188, was launched. It was to be the docking target craft for the Cosmos 186 craft. Together, they achieved the first automatic docking in space. During reentry, however, it veered off course and was destroyed midair. The official Soviet report covered up the fact saying it successfully landed on November 2. Cosmos 189 was launched along with it.

1968: Soyuz 3 and its crew of 1 returned to Earth after a mission into orbit. It was discovered that Beregovoi, the lone cosmonaut on the mission, was trying to dock upside-down with Soyuz 2. The spacecraft deorbited after its 81st orbit just 3 seconds late, causing the spacecraft to land 10 kilometers away from the targeted landing site.

1981: Venera 13 was launched. It was an unmanned probe that was to land on Venus. It had a twin craft, Venera 14, built to take advantage of the 1981 Venus launch window and they were launched 5 days apart. After 4 months, the spacecraft descended into the Venusian atmosphere on March 1, 1982. It survived about 4 times longer than it should have after landing, signifying a great success.

1985: STS-61-A and its crew of 8 was launched into orbit on a 7 day mission. It deployed the GLOMR, a military communications satellite. It also carried with it Spacelab D-1 which stayed in the payoad bay.

1999: A meteorite from Mars was found in Los Angeles. It was creatively dubbed the "Los Angeles Meteorite."

2002: Soyuz TMA-1 and its crew of 3 was launched to the ISS. It was an automatic passenger spacecraft that automatically docked to the station. It was the first Soyuz TMA model. The crew of the TMA-1 stayed aboard the station for 10 days until returning to Earth in Soyuz TM-34.

Edited November 2, 2016 by The Raging Sandwich

[The Raging Sandwich]

October 31

1930: Original US Space Race astronaut Michael Collins was born. He flew on Gemini 10 and Apollo 11, joining the first lunar landing crew.

1956: A Jupiter A rocket, a modified Redstone, was launched. The first 13 seconds of the flight were successful, but the yaw gyro malfunctioned causing excessive yaw in the rocket. To avoid any danger, a ground cut-off was commanded.

1957: Another Jupiter A rocket was launched. At 68 seconds after liftoff, a computer guidance failure occured. To counteract it, too many instructions were given to it at one time, causing excessive yaw. Cut-off was at 98 seconds.

1964: US astronaut Theodore Freeman died after a goose hit the windshield of his T-38 training craft as it was landing. He ejected from the aircraft but he was at too low of an altitude for the parachute to deploy.

2000: Soyuz TM-31 and its crew of 3 was launched into orbit to the ISS. It docked with the station on November 2. It undocked with the station on February 24, 2001 and redocked to another port on the station to make room for a Progress ship. It undocked for good on April 18, 2001 and returned to Earth.

2001: Soyuz TM-32 and its crew of 3 landed back at Earth after a mission to the ISS.

2011: The unmanned Chines Shenzhou 8 test vehicle was launched into orbit. It docked automatically to the orbital lab Tiangong 1 on November 2. It undocked on November 10 and completed another automatic docking. It undocked for the last time on November 16 and landed back at China on November 17.

[The Raging Sandwich]

November 1

1923: Rocket pioneer Robert Goddard tested the first liquid-fuel rocket.

1944: The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory was founded. It was the U.S.'s first center for testing and developing rocket propulsion systems. It was started in 1936 when students at Cal Tech were developing rocket fuel but caught their dorm on fire. They were relocated to a nearby barn and told to continue.

1957: Phantom cosmonaut Aleksei Ledovskiy was reported dead after a supposed suborbital space flight, but no evidence has ever been found of any manned Russian suborbital spaceflights.

1962: The Soviet Mars 1 probe, also known as Sputnik 23, was launched. It was to photograph Mars on a flyby trajectory. It lost communications with Earth on March 21, 1963, but that didn't stop its journey to Mars. It completed a flyby of Mars, reaching a closest approach of 193,000 km on July 19, 1963. After, it reached heliocentric orbit.

1992: STS-52 and its crew of 7 landed back at Cape Canaveral after a mission into orbit.

1993: STS-58 and its crew of 7 landed back at Edwards AFB after a mission into orbit.

 

November 2

1955: The first rocket to fly faster than Mach 8 was launched. It was an air-launched, mulitstage, solid fuel rocket.

1978: Soyuz 31 and its crew of 2 landed back at Earth after a mission to the Salyut 6 space station.

2002: The Stardust probe did a flyby of Asteroid 5535 Annefrank.

[The Raging Sandwich]

November 3

1957: Just after a month after the launch of Sputnik 1, they launched another much larger probe called Sputnik 2. It was nearly 4 times larger and carried with it a dog named Laika, the first living thing in orbit. It tested the physical attributes of a living thing in space. The probe had enough life support to keep Laika alive for 10 days. However, she panicked and died within 5-10 hours of launch. The probe was finally deorbited by atmospheric drag 162 days later on April 14, 1958.

1963: Cosmonauts Valentina Terershkova and Andriyan Nikolayev got married. They were the first people who were both in space to marry each other.

1973: Mariner 10 was launched by an Atlas/Agena D. It was scheduled for a flyby of Venus in February and one at Mercury in March of 1974. It first flew by Venus on February 5 and took some 4,000 pictures. After the Venus gravity assist, it was sent to Mercury. It encountered Mercury on March 29 and again on September 21, then yet another on March 16, 1975.

1994: STS-66 and its crew of 6 was launched into orbit. It carried the Atlas-3 lab which stayed in the payload and deployed and recovered the CRISTA-SPAS.

2006: The Mars Global Surveyor satellite which orbited Mars for a little under 10 years transmitted its last signal.

[cubinator]

I've read that Laika's capsule was overheating and she died from the heat about five hours in.

[DrLicor]

@cubinator, Laika died within hours from overheating, possibly caused by a failure of the central R-7 sustainer to separate from the payload. The true cause and time of her death were not made public until 2002; instead, it was widely reported that she died when her oxygen ran out on day six or, as the Soviet government initially claimed, she was euthanised prior to oxygen depletion.

[ProtoJeb21]

59 minutes ago, DrLicor said:

@cubinator, Laika died within hours from overheating, possibly caused by a failure of the central R-7 sustainer to separate from the payload. The true cause and time of her death were not made public until 2002; instead, it was widely reported that she died when her oxygen ran out on day six or, as the Soviet government initially claimed, she was euthanised prior to oxygen depletion.

I can almost imagine how awkward that must've been for the Russian government (maybe not, I'm not good with politics):

AMERICA: Well, since we're not enemies anymore, congrats on 45 years of having artificial satellites in orbit.

RUSSIA: he he

AMERICA: Oh that reminds me, what ever happened to that dog you sent up in '57?

RUSSIA: ....

AMERICA: Russia, what did you do?

RUSSIA: Oh..um...Laika didn't die of oxygen deprivation. We lied.

AMERICA: Russia! What happened to her?!

RUSSIA: Um...well...something was wrong with the probe's systems and she...um...kinda cooked.

AMERICA: ....

RUSSIA: We...uh...kinda made roasted dog in LEO.

AMERICA: ....

RUSSIA: Fine, we'll tell the public what really happened! You happy now?!

AMERICA: ...You know, I'm really glad we aren't Cold War enemies right now.

[DrLicor]

1 minute ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

I can almost imagine how awkward that must've been for the Russian government (maybe not, I'm not good with politics):

AMERICA: Well, since we're not enemies anymore, congrats on 45 years of having artificial satellites in orbit.

RUSSIA: he he

AMERICA: Oh that reminds me, what ever happened to that dog you sent up in '57?

RUSSIA: ....

AMERICA: Russia, what did you do?

RUSSIA: Oh..um...Laika didn't die of oxygen deprivation. We lied.

AMERICA: Russia! What happened to her?!

RUSSIA: Um...well...something was wrong with the probe's systems and she...um...kinda cooked.

AMERICA: ....

RUSSIA: We...uh...kinda made roasted dog in LEO.

AMERICA: ....

RUSSIA: Fine, we'll tell the public what really happened! You happy now?!

AMERICA: ...You know, I'm really glad we aren't Cold War enemies right now.

Laughed way to hard at this  

[Ten Key]

4 hours ago, DrLicor said:

@cubinator, Laika died within hours from overheating, possibly caused by a failure of the central R-7 sustainer to separate from the payload. The true cause and time of her death were not made public until 2002; instead, it was widely reported that she died when her oxygen ran out on day six or, as the Soviet government initially claimed, she was euthanised prior to oxygen depletion.

Sputnik 2 wasn't designed to separate from the rocket. It remained attached so it could use the rocket's telemetry system.  

 

3 hours ago, DrLicor said:

RUSSIA: We...uh...kinda made roasted dog in LEO.

AMERICA: ....

RUSSIA: Fine, we'll tell the public what really happened! You happy now?!

AMERICA: ...You know, I'm really glad we aren't Cold War enemies right now.

Biosatellite 3

[DDE]

@DrLicor, @Ten Key From what I've read, the core stage was supposed to act as a radiator. Which is did very poorly.

[The Raging Sandwich]

November 4

1959: The Merucy Little Joe 1A (LJ-1A) was launched. It was planned to test the launch-escape rocket under extreme aerodynamic forces. It was a repeat of the Little Joe mission before that was scheduled for August 21 which failed when the LER fired 31 minutes before scheduled launch. The LER was to fire when the g-forces were near-fatal on the spacecraft. The rocket fired, but pressure failed to build up, causing the LER to fire at too low of a dynamic pressure. A retry of the mission was the scheduled.

1962: The Mercury Program chimpanzee Enos died. Enos flew a two-orbit mission of the Mercury spacecraft on November 29, 1961. He was diagnosed with shigella dysentary.

1981: Venera 14 was launched. It was a twin craft with Venera 13 which launched 4 days prior. It was to accomplish what Venera 13 was too accomplish. It landed nearly 950 kilometers away from Venera 13.

1994: Soyuz TM-19 and its crew of 3 landed after a mission to the Mir space station.

1996: The Galileo Jupiter spacecraft did its 3rd flyby of the moon Callisto.

[The Raging Sandwich]

November 5

1964: Mariner 3 was launched. It was supposed to do a Mars flyby, but the failure of the launch fairings prevented it.

1995: STS-73 and its crew of 7 landed back at Cape Canaveral.

2002: The Galileo Jupiter spacecraft did a flyby of the moon Amalthea.

2013: India launched the Mars Orbiter for their first mission to Mars. Its primary goal was to test future components of interplanetary spacecraft. It used its own propulsion system to put it in a Mars injection trajectory. After multiple burns to escape Earth's sphere of influence over the month of November, it achieved solar orbit on December 3.