Author: cody

Gene Cernan aboard the Lunar Rover during the first EVA December 11 1972 – Apollo 17, the last mission to the Moon, lands on the lunar surface. 1863 – Annie Jump Cannon‘s birthday, pioneer  American classifier of stellar spectra, Cannon was an assistant at the Harvard Observatory beginning in 1896. She brought to completion the…

Helios A Launch Helios Orbit. December 10 1998 – Flight Day 8 of STS-88  and the International Space Station was opened for the first time on orbit. Commander Bob Cabana and Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev opened the hatch to the Unity node of the new International Space Station.   1974 – Helios A Launch. An…

Patrick Moore December 9 2012 – Death of Patrick Moore, English astronomer, born in 1923. He became famous as an author of more than 70 books on astronomy, as a researcher and media broadcaster. 2008 – Yuri Glazkov, Soviet cosmonaut, teacher and author, born in 1939, who flew on Soyuz 24. CollectSpace article is here.…

Image from Galileo spacecraft, 1st flyby December 8 2010 – SpaceX becomes the first privately held company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft. 2010 –  IKAROS, the japanese solar-sail spacecraft, passes Venus at a distance of about 80,800 km. 1990 –  Galileo, Jupiter exploration mission, 1st Earth Flyby.  It becomes the first interplanetary…

1995 – Galileo Probe descends into Jovian atmosphere Apollo 17 Mission Patch December 7 1995 – Galileo Probe successfully descends into Jupiter‘s atmosphere and directly measures the atmosphere of a Giant Planet for the first time. 1972 – Apollo 17 launched becoming the last Apollo mission. It is also the last time humans landed on…

December 6 1988 – STS – 27, Atlantis lands at Edwards Air Force Base and becomes “the most-damaged mission to return successfully to Earth.” Damage to over 700 heat shield tiles was caused by flying insulating material from the solid rocket booster shortly after lift-off.

December 5 2014 – Exploration Flight Test 1 (pdf) (wiki) of Orion. Due to a fill-drain anomaly, unresolved during the launch window, on original launch day of Dec 4, the launch was moved to Dec 5, 7:05 am EST.   Orion is step one in NASA’s Human Journey to Mars.  Testing computers, control systems, The…

The Earth and Moon from Gemini 7 Jeremiah Horrocks December 4 1996 – Mars Pathfinder (USA) launched. Pathfinder was designed as a mission to test new technology. "Faster, better, and cheaper” with three years for development and cost under $150 million dollars." Also, to demonstrate the mobility and usefulness of a microrover on the surface…

Mars Polar Lander landing ellipse December 3 2015 – The European Space Agency successfully launched the LISA Pathfinder, a spacecraft designed to demonstrate technology for observing gravitational waves in space. 2014 – The Japanese space agency, JAXA, launches the space explorer Hayabusa 2 from the Tanegashima Space Center on a six-year round trip mission to…

STS 61 Mission Patch December 2 1993 – Endeavor STS-61 launched. The first Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission. Mission duration: 10 days, 19 hours, 58 minutes, 37 seconds. A record of five space walks. This mission repaired the faulty optics on HST allowing astronomers a new, clear view of space.  1992 –STS-53 (Discovery) launched on…