1990 – The Hubble Space Telescope sent back its first photographs. However, a flaw was discovered in Hubble’s main mirror which significantly reduced the telescope’s ability to focus and for three years astronomers had only fuzzy images of the universe, though these were far better than images from ground based telescopes.
1978 – NASA’s Pioneer Venus 1 was launched. The primary goal of this mission was to study the Venusian environment, including mapping its surface and investigating its atmosphere. The mission was successful in operating until October 8, 1992, when it ran out of fuel and burned up in Venus’ atmosphere.
1964 – Discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation by Robert Woodrow Wilson and Arno Penzias.
Birthdays
1951 – Birthday, Thomas Akers, retired American astronaut born in St. Louis, Missouri. He was a member of the 1987 NASA Group and flew on missions STS-41, STS-49, STS-61, STS-79
1944 – David Mathieson Walker was born in Columbus, Georgia, USA. NASA Selection: NASA Group 8 (1978). He was a veteran of four spaceflights, and logged nearly 725 hours in space. He was the pilot on STS-51-A in 1984, and was the commander of STS-30 in 1989, STS-53 in 1992 and STS-69 in 1995. He died of cancer on April 23, 2001, age 56.
