2010 – The Space Shuttle Discovery launched on STS-131, on a mission to resupply the International Space Station. It was also known as ISS assembly flight 19A.
2002 – Scientists announced that asteroids in our Solar System might be more numerous than previously thought.The ESA Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) allowed astronomers to conduct the first systematic search for asteroids in the infrared, revealing a larger population than previously known.
1991 – Sonny Carter, American astronaut, 1 spaceflight, 5.0 days in space, flew to orbit on STS-33, was born in 1947, dies while on NASA business, in the crash of Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 2311.
1991 – The launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-37, to deploy the (GRO) Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. The purpose of the mission is to obtain gamma-ray measurements over the entire celestial sphere, with significantly improved angular resolution and sensitivity over previous gamma-ray space missions. Compton was safely deorbited and re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere on June 4, 2000.
1975 – Launch of Soyuz 18-1 Oleg Makarov, Vasili Lazarev for rendezvous with Salyut 4. However, their craft did not achieve orbit when the third stage failed to separate from second stage but still ignited. At 192 km, and following a 20.6+ G reentry, the capsule landed in the Altai mountains, tumbled down a mountainside, and snagged in some bushes just short of a precipice. Lazarev never flew to space again and never fully recovered from the accident; Makarov made two more flights on board a Soyuz.
Birthdays
1950 – Dr Franklin Ramon Chang-Diaz was selected as an astronaut candidate in Selection NASA Group 9 (1980), and first flew aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-61-C. He is a veteran of seven Space Shuttle missions, tying the record, as of 2021 for the most spaceflights. Time in space 66d 18h 16m. Missions STS-61-C, STS-34, STS-46, STS-60, STS-75, STS-91, STS-111.
1949 – 
Judith Resnik, American electrical engineer, software engineer, biomedical engineer, and astronaut. She was selected as NASA Astronaut Group 8. She was the second American woman to fly to space. Her first space flight was aboard STS-41-D, the first flight of Shuttle Discovery. Her second flight aboard STS-51-L Challenger is when her remarkable life ended in disaster at 11:39 on January 28, 1986.
