2009 – Messenger Mercury Flyby 3 as part of its mission to orbit the planet, using a series of gravity assists to slow down and achieve Mercury orbit in 2011. This final flyby allowed the spacecraft to capture high-resolution images, gather detailed spectral data of specific surface features and the planet’s exosphere, and provide a final gravity assist before entering orbit
2004 – SpaceShipOne (SS1) successfully completed the first of two X-Prize flights. The peak altitude reached was 337,500 ft. Pilot, Mike Melvill, noted that his altitude predictor exceeded the required 100 km mark.
1988 – STS 26 Shuttle Discovery launched. Mission marked the resumption of Shuttle flights after the 1986 51-L accident. Crew: Commander: Frederick H. Hauck, Pilot: Richard O. Covey, Mission Specialists: John M. Lounge, David C. Hilmers, George D. Nelson. Mission Duration: 97 hours 11 seconds.
1962 – Canada’s first communications satellite, the
Alouette 1 is launched from a US air base in California. Alouette 1 was a small ionospheric observatory instrumented with an ionospheric sounder, a VLF receiver, an energetic particle detector, and a cosmic noise experiment. Extended from the satellite shell were two dipole antennas (45.7- and 22.8 m long, respectively), which were shared by three of the experiments on the spacecraft. The satellite was spin-stabilized at about 1.4 rpm after antenna extension. After approximately 500 days, the spin rate slowed more than expected, to about 0.6 rpm when satellite spin stabilization failed. It is believed that the satellite gradually progressed toward a gravity gradient stabilization with the longer antenna pointing Earthward. Attitude information was deduced only from a single magnetometer and temperature measurements on the upper and lower heat shields. (Attitude determination could have been in error by as much as 10 °.) There was no tape recorder, so data were available only from the vicinity of telemetry stations. Telemetry stations were strategically located to provide primary data coverage near the 80° W meridian and in areas surrounding Hawaii, Singapore, Australia, Europe, and Central Africa. Initially, data were recorded for about 6 h per day. In September 1972, spacecraft operations were terminated.