Author: cody

Apollo 8 launch December 21 2015 – SpaceX makes history, becoming the first company to successfully return a booster stage of an orbital launch vehicle to Earth for a propulsive landing atop an earth-based, flat concrete pad. 1999 – Hughes Space and Communications Company”s (HSC) HS 702 satellites, Galaxy XI is launched, it is the…

December 20 2013 – China successfully launches the Bolivian telecommunications satellite Túpac Katari 1 from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. 1996 – Death of Carl Sagan in Seattle, WA. Our pale blue dot will miss him forever. "We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers."…

The last image of Earth taken from the Moon. – Apollo 17 December 19 2012 – Commander Chris Hadfield launches to the International Space Station for Expedition 34/35. 1999 – Discovery STS103 launched to perform the Third Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission.  7 days, 23 hours, 10 minutes, 47 seconds. Three EVA’s were completed. 1972…

Comet Borrelly is captured by DS1. December 18 2001 – NASA’s adventurous Deep Space 1 mission, which successfully tested 12 high-risk, advanced space technologies and captured the best images ever taken of a comet, shuts down it’s ion engines and the mission comes to an end. 1999 – NASA launches into orbit the Terra platform…

spaceship one – 2003 Wright Flyer – 1903 December 17 2015– James Webb Space Telescope got closer to space when it signed a contract with Arianespace to launch on an Ariane 5 rocket in October 2018. 2003 – SpaceShipOne, piloted by Brian Binnie, makes its first powered and first supersonic flight. 1998 – The discovery…

Lavochkin 3V (V-70)  Venera 7 Spacecraft Gemini Spacecraft  at rendezvous December 15 1984 – Vega 1 Launch. Soviet twin missions to Venus (lander) and Comet Halley flyby. 1970 – The USSR’s Venera 7 touches down on Venus and becomes the first spacecraft to transmit data from another planet. Although data transmission after landing only lasted…

Canadian Space Agency Logo     Tycho Brahe (1546 – 1601) December 14 1989 – The Canadian Space Agency was created by an act of Parliament and its mission is to "promote the peaceful use and development of space for the social and economic benefit of Canadians. In 1966, John H. Chapman, who was head…

ALH84001 Last Man on the Moon Eugene Cernan December 13 2000 – Scientists, led by Kathie Thomas-Keprta of Lockheed Martin at Johnson Space Center and funded by the NASA Astrobiology Institute, report  compelling evidence that primitive life existed on Mars. Tiny magnetite crystals, identical to those used by aqueous bacteria on Earth as compasses to…

Saturn V rocket on tombstone. December 12 1994 – Death of Stuart Roosa, American astronaut, born in Durango, Colorado in 1933.  He commanded the Apollo 14 module "Kitty Hawk"  when Shepard and Mitchell spent two days on the lunar surface.  He was one of only 24 people to travel to the Moon. 1970 – Uhuru,…