One major importance of going to space is the view we get of ourselves back here on Earth.

SEPTEMBER

Saturnian Rings

 

September 1


2000 - Close encounter with a space rock. A half km wide object known as 2000 QW7 -- only discovered August 26, 2000, with NASA/JPL's Near Earth Asteroid Tracking system (NEAT) passed Earth at a distance 12 times greater than Earth-Moon distance. In astronomical distances, a near miss! 2000 QW7 was fast-moving and unusually bright. Bill Hollenbach captures the images on CCD. See GeoSpace for Earth-Sun interactions.

1979 -Pioneer 11 Flyby Of Saturn, closest approach 20,900 kms (13,000 miles). It took the first close-up pictures of the planet. Instruments located two previously undiscovered small moons and an additional ring, Pioneer 11 charted Saturn's magnetosphere and magnetic field and found its planet-size moon, Titan, to be too cold for life. 

1859 - Solar physicist Richard Carrington observes the first solar flare ever recorded. An intense aurora followed the next day.

September 2

Astro History for today not available. Back to Calendar.

 

September 3


1976 - The Viking 2 lander touches down on Mars, about 7 weeks after Viking 1. The orbiter returns 55,000 images showing surface details as small as 10m. Gravity field data was collected. Atmospheric water levels were monitored and selected sites were thermally mapped.

Viking 2 touchdown on Mars!

September 4


Astro History for today not available. Back to Calendar.

September 5


1977  - Voyager 1 launched:  The Voyager Project was initially approved in May 1972. At a cost of $860 million US dollars (to the Neptune flyby) the mission was bargain considering the vast return of data and new knowledge of the outer Solar System.

1959 -   Launch at the Churchill Range of the first truly Canadian  sounding rocket, the Black Brant 1, built by Bristol Aerospace of Winnipeg, Manitoba.

September 6


1899 - Founding of the Astronomical and Astrophysical Society of America, now the American Astronomical Society.

September 7


1997 - The first of the Uranian irregular moons, Caliban, were discovered by Brett J. Gladman (Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics), Philip D. Nicholson (Cornell University), Joseph A. Burns (Cornell University) and JJ Kavelaars (McMaster University, Hamilton). They were using the 5-meter Hale telescope on Palomar Mountain. Uranus has 16 regular moons.

Discovery image of Caliban

September 8


2000 - STS-106 launch of Atlantis on a mission to the International Space Station. The five astronauts and two cosmonauts will begin preparations necessary to open ISS for business. 

1999 - Asteroid 699 Hela Closest Approach To Earth (0.644 AU) 

1966 - The TV show Star Trek premieres, inspiring a generation's interest in space, astronomy, technology, special effects, and alternative social systems.

The Enterprise


Seawifs global imaging



The Great Refractor at 
Harvard, circa 1839

September 9


1999 - Russia launches Microgravity Research Satellite aboard a  Soyuz-U and successfully puts a Foton-12 spacecraft into orbit.

1999 -  The complete global biosphere package of NASA's Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWifs), onboard the SeaStar satellite, is scheduled for release..  "Seen from space the oceans color the Earth like a big blue marble. But with the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) aboard the SeaStar satellite, sea colors bloom into an artist's palate of rich scientific information. Sent into orbit two years ago, SeaWiFS is approaching its second operational anniversary and researchers continue to get back significant results from this small, inexpensive research device.  By observing something as apparently simple as ocean color, scientists working  with SeaWiFS data are beginning to understand the complex rhythms of life in the oceans, the pulse of the global biosphere, and human effects on the environment."    -- NASA
1975 -  Viking 2 (USA) launched. Arrived at Mars on  September 3, 1976. 

1892 - Lick Observatory astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard discovers Jupiter's innermost satellite, Amalthea. 

1789 - William Cranch Bond's Birthday. Born in Portland, Maine. In 1839 Bond became the first director of the Harvard College Observatory (1839--59). He equipped it from his own observatory and worked without salary.  A pioneer in celestial photography, he discovered the seventh satellite of Saturn, Hyperion, with son George Bond.  In 1850, Saturn's crape, or inner, ring was first observed, again by the Bonds. That same year, the first daguerreotype ever made of a star, the bright Vega, was taken by J.A. Whipple working under W.C. Bond, following several years of experiments using smaller telescopes. 

September 10


1857 - James E. Keeler's birthday, pioneer American spectroscopist and astrophysicist. He carried out important spectroscopic work on 120,000 nebulae. In 1895 Keeler showed that different parts of Saturn's rings rotate at different velocities, which demonstrated that the rings are not solid bodies but instead are a collection of small objects in independent orbits. Co-founder of the Astrophysical Journal. James Keeler died in 1900.

Sep 11, 2001 ... picture taken from International Space Station
9/11

September 11


2001 - 9/11 - International terrorists use passenger jets as weapons of mass destruction and hit the twin towers of the World Trade Center, Manhattan and the Pentagon.  Crew aboard the International Space Station give us the view from space. More pictures from space

1985 - ICE, the International Cometary Explorer, makes the first ever comet tail transverse, a flyby of comet 21/PGiacobini-Zinner. The science mission goal was to study the interaction between the solar wind and a cometary atmosphere. 

1877 - Sir James Jeans birthday, English astronomical theoretician. In the first decade of this century Jeans worked out the fundamentals of gravitational collapse processes, which are of relevance to the formation of solar systems, stars, and galaxies.


ICE explores a comet


John Holliman 
1948 - 1998
JFK at Rice University

September 12


1998 - John Holliman, 49, dies in an automobile accident. As national correspondent for CNN news network John Holliman reported on shuttle space missions, missions to Mir, and probably his most famous, the Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997. His enthusiasm for space was contagious and he served the public well with his dedication and understanding of the important work of exploration.  Shortly after his death JPL announced the naming of an asteroid in honor of Holliman. In 1999 NASA dedicated its press site auditorium at the Kennedy Space Center the John Holliman Auditorium. "All of us at NASA are stunned and saddened by this tragic loss. John’s love and enthusiasm for space flight and exploration was infectious and brought America some of the most memorable moments and finest reporting in the history of NASA." -- Dan Goldin


1970 - Luna 16 (USSR) launched. The mission is noted for the first lunar samples recovered by an unmanned spacecraft and returned to the Earth. 

1962 - President Kennedy gives his famous speech at Rice University in which he declares  "We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not only because they are easy, but because they are hard,  because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. "  

1959 - Luna 2 (USSR) becomes the first manmade object to strike the moon.

September 13


Astro History for today not available. Back to Calendar.

September 14


1999 -  NASA announces it's NASA Art Program. In-residence programs for writers, musicians, poets and possible dancers will bring art to the greatest human adventure yet.  Gary Soto from Berkley California,  is announced as NASA's first poet. His task will bring poetry to a future launch. His poem "The Boys First Flight" brings young and old alike to the dreams and adventures of space exploration. Judy Collin's wrote and performs "Beyond the Sky" to commemorate Eilleen Collin's mission STS-93, the first women to command a spacecraft. (Spacegene's spin: It's about time! Space exploration and cultural exploration, in tandem, will do more good for the cause of peace and justice on this planet than any current power is accomplishing.) 

1915 - John Dobson's birthday. Founder of the Sidewalk Astronomers. He taught many how to make telescopes affordably and how to use those telescopes: "We have a responsibility to show others what our universe looks like through a telescope--and explain what we're seeing." 

John Dobson

September 15


1991 - Wind Imaging Interferometer (WINDII) aboard NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS has ten sensing and measuring devices) deployed from Space Shuttle flight STS-48.


Kupier Belt Object 1992 QB1

September 16


1992 - D. Jewitt, University of Hawaii; and J. Luu, University of California at Berkeley report the discovery of the first object orbiting the Sun beyond the planet Pluto, in the Kuiper Belt.

September 17


1789 - William Herschel discovers Saturn's moon Mimas. 
Saturn's Moon Mimas 
photographed by Voyager

September 18


2000 - Report of the UK Task Force on Near Earth Objects released. The Task Force was chaired by Dr Harry Atkinson, formerly of the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) and past Chairman of the European Space Agency's Council. Sir Crispin Tickell, British diplomat, and Professor David Williams, immediate past President of the Royal Astronomical Society, completed the team. The report covered made 14 recommendations which include the British role in a greater international effort, improvement in the ability to detect incoming objects, an assessment of risks, measures to mitigate any future impacts, and new national and international arrangements to cope with the many issues that are raised. The report is also a comprehensive review of current knowledge  

1999 - Deep Space 1, End Of Primary Mission

September 19


1988 - Israel launches its 1st satellite, military reconnaissance.

Supernova remnant in the 
Small Magellenic Cloud.
NASA/SAO/CXC image

September 20


1999 - Chandra X-Ray Space Telescope, launched on July 23, 1999,  reveals previously unobserved features in the remnants of three different supernova explosions. 

September 21


1974 - Mariner 10, 2nd Flyby Of Mercury


Mariner 10

September 22


2001 - In a risky flyby, NASA's ailing Deep Space 1 spacecraft successfully navigated past Comet Borrelly, giving researchers the best look ever inside the glowing core of icy dust and gas. 

September 23


1962 - The TV show The Jetsons premieres, a production of Hanna-Barbara it initiated a generation of cartoon-watching baby boomers into a technologically based future. 

1846 - Johann Galle of the Berlin Observatory sees and identifies the planet Neptune for the first time. Neptune's existence had been postulated in the calculations of Leverrier.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Caltech
Mars Climate Orbiter Lost








Luna 16

September 24


1999 - Mars Climate Orbiter Lost.  Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI) was to occur at an altitude of 140 km but hours before the MOI bipropellant engine burn the JPL team worried about a navigation error that was bringing the orbiter to a 57 kms altitude, 83 kms beneath the intended orbit. Later analysis found that a navigation error occurred when a translation from Imperial units to Metric units was incorrect.  "The desaturation of the reaction wheels does impart a small force on the spacecraft, and has to be accounted for in the navigation. Lockheed Martin, who built the Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft, provided the reaction wheel data to the JPL navigators.  JPL does its navigation work exclusively using the  metric system, and Lockheed was required to provide the data in metric units. They instead provided the data in imperial units.  Even though the force of the desaturation of the reactions wheels was small, desaturations were done frequently during the cruise period of the orbiter (~9 months), and the error from using imperial units accumulated over time.  Also, JPL does share in the blame in the loss of the orbiter, as JPL should have detected the use of imperial units by Lockheed." (Ron Baalke)

    The Mars Surveyor Program, NASA, JPL and Caltech, launched the Mars Climate Orbiter on December 11, 1998.  The Orbiter was to provide command and data relay support for the Mars Lander phase then being its mapping phase, during which systematic daily global sounding of the atmosphere and imaging of the surface was to be performed for one Mars year (687 days). But this mission is only one of a series of planned missions to the Red Planet, each capable of doing science. 
1970 - First unmanned, automated return of lunar material to the earth, the Soviet's Luna 16 returns with three ounces of the moon.

Europa

September 25


1998 - Galileo spacecraft completed a close-up flyby of Europa at 8:54 p.m. PDT, Galileo skimmed over the icy moon at an altitude of only 2,226 miles.

1992 - NASA launches the Mars Observer spacecraft to study the atmosphere and surface of Mars. Contact was lost with the spacecraft on August 21, 1993 just before orbit insertion.

September 26


1991 - Anik-E1 launched from Kourou aboard an Ariane 44P. (mass 2,977 kg)

September 27


Astro History for today not available. Back to Calendar.

September 28


1999 - NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory releases a stunning image of the Crab Nebula, the spectacular remains of a stellar explosion, revealing something never before seen. The brilliant ring around the nebula's heart are waves of high-energy particles that appear to have been flung outward over the distance of a light year from the central star, and high-energy jets of particles blast away from the neutron star in a direction perpendicular to the spiral.

Image Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO
Chandra discovers 
The Crab Nebula

September 29


1988 - STS 26 Shuttle Discovery launched. Mission marked resumption of Shuttle flights after 1986 51-L accident.  Crew: Commander: Frederick H. Hauck, Pilot: Richard O. Covey, Mission Specialists: John M. Lounge, David C. Hilmers, George D. Nelson Mission Duration: 97 hours 11 seconds.

1962 - Canada's first communications satellite, the Alouette 1, is launched from a US air base in California. Alouette 1 was a small ionospheric observatory instrumented with an ionospheric sounder, a VLF receiver, an energetic particle detector, and a cosmic noise experiment. Extended from the satellite shell were two dipole antennas (45.7- and 22.8-m long, respectively) which were shared by three of the experiments on the spacecraft. The satellite was spin-stabilized at about 1.4 rpm after antenna extension. After about 500 days, the spin slowed more than had been expected, to about 0.6 rpm when satellite spin-stabilization failed. It is believed that the satellite gradually progressed toward a gravity gradient stabilization with the longer antenna pointing earthward. Attitude information was deduced only from a single magnetometer and temperature measurements on the upper and lower heat shields. (Attitude determination could have been in error by as much as 10 deg.) There was no tape recorder, so data were available only from the vicinity of telemetry stations. Telemetry stations were located to provide primary data coverage near the 80 deg W meridian and in areas near Hawaii, Singapore, Australia, Europe, and Central Africa. Initially, data were recorded for about 6 h per day. In September 1972, spacecraft operations were terminated. 
STS 26 Mission Patch

September 30


1999 - Asteroid 1992 SK Closest Approach To Earth (0.479 AU)

1970 - Telesat signs an agreement with Hughes Aircraft to build Canada's first communications satellite.

 1960 - All Canadian sounding rocket - launched from Churchill, Manitoba.

1880 - Henry Draper makes the first photo of the Orion Nebula, and Doug Johnstone continues the exploration of the Orion Nebula tody taking photos with HST. 

Today's Space News




This page was created by me.  Last updated 16 Nov 2003 .