Massive problems were encountered in the difficult test series - with poor-quality kerosene fuel, handling and leakage of the propellants, and reliable start of the engine. But the Red Army saw much more promise in the design than in Korolev's cumbersome liquid oxygen rockets.

Combat Training Launch fired from AMR at 1317 hours and 54.1 seconds EST to a predicted impact point of 1,514 nm from the firing site. All functions of the flight were normal up to 153 seconds, at which time fuel depletion was reached and normal guidance cut-off was not achieved. The missile impacted approximately 230 miles short of the intended target. All missions assigned to the NATO training launch crew were accomplished.

Spacecraft 007 and 011 were delivered to NASA by North American Aviation. Spacecraft 007 was delivered to Houston to be used for water impact and flotation tests in the Gulf of Mexico and in an environmental tank at Ellington AFB. It contained all recovery systems required during actual flight and the total configuration was that of a flight CM.

The CM of spacecraft 011 was similar to those in which astronauts would ride in later flights and the SM contained support systems including environmental control and fuel cell systems and the main service propulsion system. Spacecraft 011 was scheduled to be launched during the third quarter of 1966.

ASPO Manager Joseph F. Shea and members of his organization were invited to attend the formal presentation by the Aeronutronic Division of Philco Corp. on a "Study of Lunar Worm Planetary Roving Vehicle Concept," at LaRC on May 3. The exploratory study to determine the feasibility of a bellows-concept mobile vehicle included a mobility and traction analysis for several kinds of bellows motion and several soil surfaces; analysis of both metallic and nonmetallic construction to provide the bellows structure; brief design studies of the concept as applied to a small unmanned vehicle, a supply vehicle, a small lunar shelter, a large lunar shelter; and an overall evaluation of the suitability of the concept for carrying out various missions as compared with other vehicles.

He believes it was a 'true test' of American technical capability in space. The saving of the American astronauts demonstrated the robust redundancy in the American Saturn V - Apollo design, as compared with the Soviet N1-L3. The latter, Kamanin remarks, is a bad launch vehicle, boosting a bad spacecraft. Kamanin sees the Soviet science fiction film Solaris - and finds it too fantastic for his taste.

ASAT interceptor. First test of ASAT after extended storage. Missed Cosmos 1171 target by a large distance; over the two following days two more attempts were made with the backup engine, but all failed. On 20 April the satellite was ordered to self-destruct in orbit, ending the longest ASAT interceptor mission.

Replaced Molniya 3-23. Operation of the long-range telephone and telegraph radio communications system in the USSR; transmission of USSR Central Television programmes to stations in the Orbita network and within the framework of international cooperation.

Experimental Rural Communications satellite. Launch delayed following pad abort on March 28. First launch of the Indian GSLV launch vehicle. GSat 1 was an Indian, 1500 kg scaled-dow) test model of a future geosynchronous communications spacecraft with a 440 N ISRO liquid apogee motor, and S-band and C-band ommunications transponders, similar to the Insat-2 satellites. The motor for the cryogenic, hydrogen-oxygen upper stage had been purchased from Russia but the design had never flown in space before. The stage cut off without providing the required delta-V - preliminary analysis revealed a shortfall of 0.5% in the thrust. An attempt was made to reach a usable orbit using the station-keeping motor of the GSAT satellite itself. After a series of burns, GSat 1 ran out of propellant - 10 kg more fuel would have been required to reach a stationary orbit. In the end, the parameters of the drifting (about 13 deg/day) orbit were period 23 hours, apogee 35,665 km, perigee 33,806 km, and inclination 0.99 deg. The fully functional transponders and transmitters on board were deactivated on instructions of the International Telecommunications Union. As of 4 September 2001 located at 54.88 deg E drifting at 13.212 deg E per day. As of 2007 Mar 10 located at 50.16W drifting at 12.778E degrees per day.

Scaled Composites (Mojave, California, USA) rolls out their X-Prize vehicle, consisting of the White Knight carrier aircraft and SpaceShipOne spaceplane. This is followed by a demonstration flight by the White Knight carrier-launch aircraft. Flight Time: 0.2 hours Pilot: Melvill Copilot: Binnie. Objectives: Formal media rollout Results: Good show for the VIP/media audience

China's first transmission-type small satellite capable of stereo mapping. It was jointly designed by the Harbin Polytechnic University, Chinese Research Institute of Space Technology, Changchun Photomechanical Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)and Xi'an Surveys and Designs Institute. The experiment satellite carried out photographic surveys of China's land resources, monitored the geographical environment and conducted scientific research on mapping. It was handed over for use to the Satellite Remote-Sensing Ground Station of CAS following the on-orbit testing.

The announced mass of the two satellites launched was far less than the payload capability of the CZ-2C. It was believed that an unannounced military satellite may have been orbited. Object 2004-12D was in a much lower perigee orbit of 350 x 606 km x 97 deg and may have separated prior to second stage vernier cutoff.

Placed in an initial 313 x 322 km orbit. The first flight of a Falcon 9 with experimental landing legs on the first stage. Falcon 9 stage 1 reignited during descent after reaching around 120 km, and touched down vertically on the ocean after demonstrating that it could maintain its orientation during the return from space. The Falcon 9 second stage carried five cubesats; after ejecting them, the stage was deorbited over the Indian Ocean and destroyed during reentry. The Dragon trunk carried the OPALS and HDEV experiments for laser communications and Earth imaging respectively. They would be installed on the ISS - JSC's HDEV on the Columbus module EPF, and JPL's OPALS for the ELC-1 platform. Spacesuit EMU 3003 was also aboard Dragon. Following unloading of cargo and reloading with items to be returned to earth, the hatch to Dragon CRS-3 was closed on May 17. Dragon was unberthed by the SSRMS Canadarm-2 at about 12:00 GMT May 18 and released at 13:26 GMT. The deorbit burn at 18:12 to 18:22 GMT was followed by trunk separation at about 18:24 GMT, atmosphere entry at 18:45 GMT and splashdown west of Baja California at 19:05 GMT. It was reported that some water leaked into the Dragon cabin after splashdown, but NASA said the cargo was not damaged.

Cubesat for Cornell University's Space Systems Design Stuido. The satellite had a mass of 2.68 kg, of which 0.52 kg was to have been ejected on May 4 in the form of 104 tiny 5-gram Sprites, circuit boards which acted as independent satellites with small transmitters able to send a simple message to ground stations. A timer problem on Kicksat meant that the deployment of the Sprite subsatellites was reset to May 16. However, Kicksat, and its undeployed Sprites, were destroyed when it reentered on May 14.

See Cygnus CRS-7 (OA 7, SS John Glenn). Cygnus mission OA-7, the S.S. John Glenn, was launched on ULA Atlas AV-070. The 7221 kg cargo ship carried about 140 kg of small satellites for later deployment and about 3250 kg of other cargo. OA-7 arrived at ISS on Apr 22.