Representatives of Martin Company briefed Director Robert R. Gilruth and some of the senior staff of Space Task Group on Titan II technical characteristics and expected performance. At a senior staff meeting four days later, August 7, Gilruth commented on the Titan II's promise for manned spaceflight, particularly its potential ability to place larger payloads in orbit than could Atlas, which would make it 'a desirable booster for a two-man spacecraft.' Martin had estimated the cost of procuring and launching nine Titan II boosters, with cost of ancillary equipment, at $47.889 million spread over fiscal years 1962 through 1964.

Willis B. Foster, Director of Manned Space Science in the Office of Space Science and Applications, distributed a preliminary draft report of the Ad Hoc Astronomy Panel of the Orbiting Research Laboratory (ORL). The panel, which met on 26 October 1963 and again on 24 June 1964, was created to sound out the American scientific community on the validity of manned astronomy in space and to define astronomy objectives for the ORL, mission. Additional Details: here....

NASA named three firms, Bendix Systems Division, TRW Systems Group, and Space-General Corporation to design prototypes of the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP). Each company received a $500,000, six-month contract. After delivery of the prototypes, MSC would select one of the three to develop the ALSEP flight hardware.

Mishin sends a letter to Kamanin, linking acceptance of his eight cosmonaut candidates from OKB-1 to continuation of sea recovery tests of the Soyuz capsule at Fedosiya. Kamanin's early hopes for Mishin have been dashed - not only is he no Korolev, but his erratic management style and constant attempts to work outside of accepted channels and methods, are ruining the space program. Later Gagarin briefs Kamanin on the impossibility of meeting Brezhnev, who has flown south for vacation without reacting to Gagarin's letter. Most likely, the letter will be referred to Ustinov, who will pass it to Smirnov, with instructions to suppress this "revolt of the military". Gagarin requests permission to resume flight and parachute training in preparation for a space mission assignment. Kamanin agrees to allow him to begin three months before the mission to space. This will be no earlier than 1967, as Gagarin will not be assigned to the first Soyuz flights.

Kamanin decides to smooth over matters with OKB-1. He calls Mishin, and then Tsybin, and agrees to begin processing of Anokhin, Yeliseyev, Volkov, and Kubasov as soon as he receives their personnel files and security clearances. Mishin promises to deliver the Soyuz mock-up of the Tu-104 zero-G aircraft soon - it slid from 20 July, then from 7 August.

A meeting is held to try to finally get the IF-16 centrifuge into the state plan. The Americans has several centrifuges of this size, Russia not one. It has to be purchased abroad, with the choice being either a French or Swedish model. The Swedish model is preferred, but there is not enough money in the state plan for the hefty 12 million rouble asking price. The entire space budget his year will be limited to 700 million roubles - the money for the centrifuge will have to be found within that at the expense of something else...

Biological research. Scientists from the U.S.S.R., the U.S., Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and the German Democratic Republic conducted experiments in physics and biology on the mission. The biosatellite was recovered at 51 deg 53 min N, 61 deg 30 min E, near Kustanay in Central Asia after remaining in orbit for 18.5 days. Additional Details: here....

The vehicle was supposed to reach an altitude of 2400 m but only made it to 700 m due to a stuck thrust vector control valve that resulted in a 45 degree deviation from vertical fligh. The errant vehicle was shut down by command from the support ship at T+14 sec. After this attempt, the project, backed entirely with private funds, folded.

Unmanned resupply vessel to Mir. Rendezvous transfer orbits 187 X 250 km, 51. 64 deg; 266 X 314 km; 309 X 360 km. Docked with Mir on 5 Aug 1987 22:27:35 GMT. Refueled Mir propellants tanks on 15/16 Sept. Undocked on 21 Sep 1987 23:57:41 GMT. Destroyed in reentry on 23 Sep 1987 01:02:00 GMT. Total free-flight time 3.12 days. Total docked time 47.06 days.

Commercial TV broadcast. Stationed at 100.79 deg W. Launch vehicle put payload into supersynchronous earth orbit with MRS trajectory option. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 101 deg W in 1994-1999 As of 5 September 2001 located at 100.81 deg W drifting at 0.010 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 11 located at 91.17W drifting at 0.006W degrees per day.

16 C-Band, 24 Ku-Band transponders; 320 radio + 120 DirecTV channels. Stationed at 68.5 deg E. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 68 deg E in 1995-1999 As of 5 September 2001 located at 72.03 deg E drifting at 0.003 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 11 located at 72.00E drifting at 0.003W degrees per day.

Docking at Mir:

Progress-M32 docked at the Mir-station (-X axis, forward port transition section) on 2.08.1996 at 22.03.44 UTC. So 6 minutes later than planned. Approach and docking were executed in the automatic mode by the use of the system Kurs.

Radio traffic: As always during such operations the radio traffic was very interesting. During the pass in orb. 59727, 2149-2156 UTC , the approach was still going on. The crew just accomplished a test of the TORU-system (for eventual manual guidance by the Mir-crew). They did not use this system. At 215520 UTC the distance between Progress-M32 and Mir was 180 M. The cosmonauts monitored the images made from Progress-M32 of the station on their displays. They also observed the approaching Progress-M32 via illuminators. The traffic revealed that, though somewhat slower than planned, the operation was proceeding well. During the next pass in orb. 59728, 2327-2333 UTC, radio traffic revealed that Progress-M32 had docked at Mir. The preparations for the opening of the hatches were going on, i.e. airseal checks, the equalisation of the pressures in Progress-M32 and Mir, deployment of an air hose, and so on. During the pass in orb. 59729, on 3.08.1996 from 0057-0107 UTC, the hatches were open and de cosmonauts already had entered the freighter to remove things which had to be transferred to the complex as soon as possible. After checks of the systems of Progress-M32 and the work to be sure that Progress-M32 was fixed at the station tight and safely the crew could go asleep. And so did, tired but satisfied, your 'observer'.

The Progress-M32, will -relatively- remain a part of the Mir-complex for a short period: If the operations with Soyuz-TM24 (relief crew) will proceed according to plan (of this moment) Progress-M32 has to depart on 20.08.1996 to free the forward docking port for the Soyuz-TM24, which has to be launched on 19.08.1996. Progress-M31: This old freighter separated from Mir on 1.08.1996 at 16.44.54 UTC. and burnt up in the atmosphere. (Further details in a next Mir-report.)

Chris v.d. Berg, NL-9165/A-UK3202.

The NASA Messenger probe to Mercury was was first placed into a parking orbit. The Delta booster second stage's second burn raised the orbit, then the PAM-D solid motor burned to put the probe on an escape trajectory into a 0.92 x 1.08 AU x 6.4 deg heliocentric orbit. Messenger (Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging) was to make an Earth flyby on August 1, 2005; Venus flybys in 2006 and 2007; and Mercury encounters in January and October 2008 , September 2009 and March 2011 . On this last encounter the Aerojet 660N engine was to fire to put Messenger into a 200 x 15,193 km x 80 deg orbit around Mercury. Launch delayed from March 10, May 11, August 2

"Amarillo by Morning" by George Strait. Expedition 11 crew of Commander Sergei Krikalev and Flight Engineer and NASA ISS Science Officer John Phillips, woke up 30 minutes later."Amarillo By Morning" was dedicated not to the crew in space, but to the Columbia

The crew exited the station from the Quest airlock wearing American suits. They installed a replacement Floating Potential Measurement Unit and two long-duration materials exposure MISSE containers. The crew then moved to the S1 truss, where Williams conducted several assembly and repair tasks on the right side of the truss, while Reiter did the same on the left. Then they worked together to install a new infrared camera that would scan arriving shuttles for damage to their heat shields. After completing further minor repairs, they were ahead of the timeline, so ground contorl passed up additonal tasks in preparation for future assembly spacewalks.

Cosmonauts Volkov and Samokutyaev, in Orlan suits, entered space from the Pirs module. They deployed the RadioSkaf-V amateur radio satellite and installed the BTLS-N lasercom terminal on the Zvezda module and the Biorisk-MSN exposure package outside the Pirs module.

Fourth Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle mission to the ISS. Carried on its external pallet the Space Test Program H4 package to be installed on ELC1 (around 400 kg), a spare Main Bus Switching Unit for ELC2 (100 kg), and a spare SARJ Utility Transfer Assembly for ELC4 (around 300 kg). The pressurized cargo was packaged in 8 HTV Resupply Racks and included the FROST freezer, the Kirobo robot, NASA's RRM Task Board 3 robotics experiment, and two J-SSOD cubesat launchers. The J-SSODs were later taken outside via the Kibo science airlock ejected five cubesats. HTV 4 reached the ISS on 9 Auguest, holding 10 metres off the Station until the Canadarm-2 robot arm captured it at 11:22 GMT. The arm berthed the module on the Harmony node at 15:28 GMT. The hatch to the pressurized cabin of the HTV was opened at 11:11 GMT on 10 August. On 11 August at 21:07 GMT the Canadarm removed the Exposed Pallet (EP) from the HTV, and at 03:59 GMT 12 August the EP was installed on the end of the Kibo Exposed Facility pallet. The equipment on the EP will be relocated to the ELC pallets on the truss using the Japanese and Canadian robot arms. After completing operations, it was unberthed from Harmony at 12:07 GMT on 4 September and released by the Canadarm at 16:20 GMT. After several maneuvers, final retrofire was over Japan at 06:11 GMT on 7 September, with burnup over the South Pacific at around 41 deg S at 06:37 GMT.