2006 – NASA’s Deep Impact Team Reports First Evidence of Cometary Ice. “We have known for a long time that water ice exists in comets, but this is the first evidence of water ice on comets.” –Jessica Sunshine, Deep Impact co-investigator
2005 – Arecibo‘s sensitive new eye, Alfalfa, begins massive sky survey. (Cornell Release)
1995 – Astronaut Eileen Collins becomes the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle as mission STS-63 launches from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Left to right (front row) are Mission Specialist Janice E. Voss; Pilot Eileen M. Collins; Commander James D. Wetherbee; and Cosmonaut and Mission Specialist Vladimir Titov of the Russian Space Agency (RSA). In the rear are Payload Commander Bernard A. Harris Jr., and Mission Specialist C. Michael Foale.
1994 – STS-60 Launch (Discovery), 1st Russian Cosmonaut on Space Shuttle, Wake Shield Facility. “The STS-60 mission saw the first flight of the Wake Shield Facility (WSF), a 12-foot diameter, stainless steel disk which was deployed and retrieved using the Shuttle mechanical arm. While it flies free of the Space Shuttle, WSF will generate an “ultra-vacuum” environment in space within which to grow thin semiconductor films for next-generation advanced electronics. The commercial applications for these new semiconductors include digital cellular telephones, high-speed transistors and processors, fiber optics, opto-electronics and high-definition television. WSF 2, 3, and 4 followed.
1994 – Maiden Flight of NASDA H-2 Satellite Launch System(Japan).
1984 – STS-41B Launch (Challenger), 1st Untethered Spacewalk would take place on this mission on Feb 7.
1966 – First soft landing on the Moon, by Soviet Luna 9.
Birthdays
1958 – Joe F. Edwards, Jr., American commander, pilot, and astronaut who Edwards flew on STS-89 (January 22–31, 1998), the eighth Shuttle-Mir docking mission.