President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a message to Congress, proposed the establishment of a National Aeronautics and Space Agency into which the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics would be absorbed. The new agency would conduct the civilian space program through research in its own facilities or by contract and would also perform military research required by DOD. Projects primarily military in character would remain the responsibility of DOD. Additional Details: here....

Complete corporate separation of Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation and Space Technology Laboratories (STL) requested. Major General B.A. Schriever, Commander, AFBMD, recommended to LtGeneral Samuel E. Anderson, ARDC Commander, that the Air Force Ballistic Missile Committee be advised to seek complete corporate separation of Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation and Space Technology Laboratories (STL).

The President, basing his recommendation on the March Z6th report of his Science Advisory Committee, stated it was essential that the nation adopt the program because it represented the next step forward in man's compelling urge to explore and discover, it would develop space technology essential to our defense, enhance our national prestige, and furnish the nation new opportunities for scientific observation and experiment which would add to man's "understanding of the earth, the solar system and the universe." The President therefore advised Congress that a National Aeronautics and Space Administration be created to furnish, "a civilian setting for administration of space functions [which] will emphasize the concern of our nation that outer space be devoted to peaceful and scientific purposes." (History, Hq ARDC, 1 Jan 31 Dec 1958, p. 13; Max Rosenberg, The Air Force in Space, 1959-1960, dtd Jun 62, USAF Hist Div Liaison Ofc, p.3.)

A preliminary briefing was conducted for prospective bidders on construction of the worldwide tracking range for Project Mercury. This meeting was attended by representatives from 20 companies. At this time the preliminary plan called for an orbital mission tracking network of 14 sites. Contacts had not been made with the governments of any of the proposed locations with the exception of Bermuda. It was planned that all the sites would have facilities for telemetry, voice communications with the pilot, and teletype (wire or radio) communications with centers in the United States for primary tracking. The tracking sites would provide the control center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, with trajectory predictions; landing-area predictions; and vehicle, systems, and pilot conditions.

The group was selected to provide six pilots for the single-crew Mercury manned spacecraft. Originally a wide pool of candidates was going to be considered, but in December 1958 President Eisenhower ruled that military test pilots would form the candidate pool.. Qualifications: Qualified jet pilot with minimum 1,500 flight-hours/10 years experience, graduate of test pilot school, bachelor's degree or equivalent, under 40 years old, under 180 cm height, excellent physical condition.. Screening of military service records showed 110 military officers that met these criteria. These 110 were to be called in three groups for briefings on the Mercury program. Of the first two groups of 35 called, 56 volunteered for further physical and psychiatric tests. This provided enough candidates and the third group was never even called for a briefing or asked if they would like to volunteer. Of the 56 tested, seven were finally selected (no objective way was found to reduce the seven finalists to six).

Of the seven astronauts, all eventually flew in space. Grounded due to a heart murmur, Slayton had to wait 16 years for his flight aboard the last Apollo mission. Glenn left for a career in politics after becoming the first American to orbit the earth, but returned to space aboard a shuttle over 36 years later in a NASA publicity stunt. Schirra was the only astronaut to fly aboard Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo spacecraft. Shepard was the only one to reach the lunar surface (after being grounded for a medical condition during the Gemini program). Grissom would die in the Apollo 204 ground fire.

Seven astronauts were selected for Project Mercury after a series of the most rigorous physical and mental tests ever given to U.S. test pilots. Chosen from a field of 110 candidates, the finalists were all qualified test pilots: Capts. Leroy G. Cooper, Jr., Virgil I. Grissom, and Donald K. Slayton, (USAF); Lt. Malcolm S. Carpenter, Lt. Comdr. Alan B. Shepard, Jr., and Lt. Comdr. Watler M. Schirra, Jr. (USN); and Lt. Col. John H. Glenn (USMC).

NASA announced the signing of a contract with McDonnell for the Gemini spacecraft. Final negotiations had been completed February 27, 1963. Estimated cost was $428,780,062 with a fixed fee of $27,870,000 for a total estimated cost-plus-fixed-fee of $456,650,062. NASA Headquarters spent two weeks on a detailed review of the contract before signing. Development of the spacecraft had begun in December 1961 under a preliminary letter contract which the final contract superseded. The contract call for a 13 flight-rated spacecraft, 12 to be used in space flight, one to be used for ground testing. In addition, McDonnell would provide two mission simulator trainers, a docking simulator trainer, five boilerplates, and three static articles for vibration and impact ground tests.

Luna 4 was the second attempted Soviet unmanned lunar soft lander probe. The spacecraft, rather than being sent on a straight trajectory toward the Moon, was placed first in an earth parking orbit. The rocket stage then reignited and put the spaccecraft on a translunar trajectory. Failure of Luna 4 to make a required midcourse correction resulted in it missing the Moon by 8336.2 km on April 6, at 4:26 a.m. Moscow time. It thereafter entered a barycentric Earth orbit. The Soviet news agency, Tass, reported that data had been received from the spacecraft throughout its flight and that radio communication would continue for a few more days.

NASA Hq. confirmed oral instructions to MSC and KSC to use 60 percent oxygen and 40 percent nitrogen to pressurize the Apollo CM cabin in prelaunch checkout operations and during manned chamber testing, as recommended by the Design Certification Review Board on March 7 and confirmed by the NASA Administrator on March 12. This instruction was applicable to flight and test articles at all locations.

Mars probe intended to enter Martian orbit and comprehensively photograph Mars, together with a landing probe. Further Mars launches during the 1969 launch window were cancelled when this attempt resulted in a major accident, which almost wiped out all of the leaders of the space industry. The Proton rocket lifted off, but one engine failed. The vehicle flew at an altitude of 50 m horizontally, finally exploding only a short distance from the launch pad, spraying the whole complex with poisonous propellants that were quickly spread by the wind. Everyone took off in their autos to escape, but which direction to go? Finally it was decided that the launch point was the safest, but this proved to be even more dangerous - the second stage was still intact and liable to explode. The contamination was so bad that there was no way to clean up - the only possibility was just to wait for rain to wash it away. This didn't happen until the Mars launch window was closed, so the first such probe was not put into space until 1971. This accident also severely damaged plans to divert attention from America's Apollo programme during the rest of 1969. 10-12 UR-500K launches had been intended to land on the moon lunar soil return and rover robots to supplement the N1 launches.

Star City staff is busy preparing for foreign delegations attending the communist party congress that will also visit the cosmonaut centre. There is dirty snow, icy roads - and in two days 100 delegates will have to get to the forested location and be able to get around. The Vietnamese are coming on 4 April, followed by the Hungarians on 6 April and the Czechs on 7 April. A standard tour is laid out, to be followed by the films 'Our Gagarin' and 'In Memory of a Visit to Star City'.

TV, business communications for Nordic countries; 5 deg E. High power telecommunications satellite with a dual mission; direct TV broadcasting and data communications. Four active transponders with two redundant; power output 200 W per transponder. Coverage area - East Nordic coverage zone as defined by ITU (WARC -77). Mission period estimated to be 6 to 8 years. Position 5 deg E. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 5 deg E in 1989-1998 As of 28 August 2001 located at 138.62 deg W drifting at 3.929 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 10 located at 132.37W drifting at 3.933W degrees per day.

Stationed at 103 deg E. Transmission of Russian radio and television programmes in Siberia and the solution of communications problems in Russia's eastern regions. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 103 deg E in 1992-1999 As of 5 September 2001 located at 140.44 deg E drifting at 0.018 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 10 located at 44.59W drifting at 1.512W degrees per day.

The EVA made by Clifford and Godwin on 27.03.96 lasted 6 hrs and 2 mins. The Mir crew experienced this EVA passively: their involvement consisted of observing and filming the event through some portholes. It was not easy to cover all activities of the American astronauts fully. They could see a part of the EVA through a porthole in de airlock of Module-D. The best view they got was through the porthole of the cabin of the board engineer in the Base Block. During the EVA the communications went via American channels. On the EVA frequency 279.000 mc Clifford and Godwin could be heard now and then. The same transmissions could be heard via the CNN relay from a TDRS. The Americans installed the experiments on the outer surface of the Docking Compartment at the Kristall-module. (The Russians speak about the 'SO'. The 'O' stands for Otsek, which means 'compartment'. So the do not speak about 'module'.) Atlantis-Mir-combination: During the period in which Atlantis and Mir were linked together many activities took place during the night in our area. We were lucky that this was not so during the EVA, which took place during our morning hours. The operations during the precursor flights cast a gloom over the future. It becomes obvious who will be in command during the flight of the International Space Station: undoubtedly this will be the Americans. Immediately after the docking the Americans took over the attitude control of the whole complex, and most of the communications and the control of the operations were theirs. Undocking of Atlantis. This took place on 29.03.96 at 0108 UTC. After the undocking Atlantis made a flight around the Mir complex and moved away at abt 1 hour later. Onufriyenko could be heard on the Mir-frequencies 130.625 and 143.625mc speaking about the attitude (movements-) control of the Mir station which was now under full control of FCC Kalingrad again. (TsUP-M). The transmissions of the images from Mir about the Atlantis were relayed by tracking stations inside Russian territory.

Mir: The passes of Mir for our area take place during the night hours and so there is not much to report about the life on board. Module Priroda: The launch of this module has been put back again. Latest available planned launch date: 23.04.1996. Chris v.d. Berg, NL-9165/A-UK3202

NASA's third Small Explorer, the Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE), was successfully launched by an Orbital Pegasus XL. The L-1011 carrier aircraft took off from Vandenberg and dropped the Pegasus over the Pacific Ocean. TRACE, a project led by Lockheed's solar physics group, carried a 30-cm extreme ultraviolet imaging telescope which will study the Sun. The telescope mirrors were made by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. TRACE had an 8.5 arcmin field of view and 1 arcsecond resolution. Air dropped in Point Arguello WADZ.

Resupply craft docked uneventfully with the Mir complex two days later. It also delivered the Sputnik-99 amateur radio satellite, launched into orbit by hand by the cosmonauts during an EVA on April 16. Still hopeful of finding a backer to pay to keep Mir in space, Progress M-41 began a series of engine burns in late April to raise the orbit of the station. It finally undocked from Mir at 11:20 GMT on July 17 and was deorbited over the Pacific later the same day.

ISRO's Insat 2E was placed in geostationary transfer orbit. The Indian-built satellite carried a C and S band communications package. Stationed at 83 deg E. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 83 deg E in 1999. As of 3 September 2001 located at 82.90 deg E drifting at 0.015 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 10 located at 82.93E drifting at 0.008W degrees per day.

From the US voluntary 'job jar' task list, after wakeup and before breakfast, CDR Whitson and FE-2 Reisman downloaded the SLEEP (Sleep-Wake Actigraphy and Light Exposure during Spaceflight) experiment data from their Actiwatches to the HRF-1 (Human Research Facility 1) laptop. Additional Details: here....

ISS EO-23. The crew first attempted to depart the ISS on 24 September. However the latches between the Soyuz and the station failed to release. Return to earth the next day was successful, with undocking at 02:03 GMT; deorbit burn at 04:31 GMT; and landing in Kazakhstan at 05:23 GMT.

See UBAKUSAT (UBAK-3U-SAT) ↑. 1U cubesat by Istanbul Technical University. Mission: Technology demonstration and Earth observation satellite to provide voice communications for amateur radio stations. Status as of 2019: Active. .

See 1KUNS-PF ↑. 1U cubesat by University of Nairobi. Mission: Mapping of Kenya's land mass, monitoring of the coastline and helping combat illegal logging activities. Status as of 2019: Active. .