2005 – Rosetta completes first Earth flyby.

1999 –  NASA’s WIRE (Wide-field Infrared Explorer) launches from Vandenberg AFB aboard a Pegasus Rocket. But shortly after reaching orbit an anomaly occurred which sent the spacecraft into an uncontrolled spin. Venting hydrogen, which is used to cool the optic systems, is suspect. Solar energy and communication systems are functionally nominal.  Mission controllers have stabilized the spin (@mar7/99) and continue to rescue the spacecraft. (@mar8/99) All hydrogen was vented into space effectively ending any science on this mission. WIRE was on a four-month mission to assemble a history of star and galaxy formation in the universe. (see press release here) 

1999 – Asteroid 1998 VD35 Near-Earth Flyby (0.169 AU)

1994 – Space Shuttle program: the Space Shuttle Columbia is launched on STS-62.

1986 – The Soviet Vega 1 begins returning images of Halley’s Comet and the first images of its nucleus.

1979 – Jupiter‘s rings discovered by Voyager 1.

1675 – John Flamsteed is appointed the first Astronomer Royal of England.

Birthday

1923 – Patrick Moore, English astronomer and television host (d. 9 December 2012)

1835 – Giovanni Schiaparelli‘s birthday, director of the Milan Obs. and popularizer of the Martian “canals” (1877c). Shiaparelli’s also established the connection between the orbits of meteor streams and the orbits of comets (1866).