Rocket reached altitude 4920 ft as determined from telescope; from NAA barograph, 3294 ft, but altitude appeared greater visually and by telescope; corrected well, parachute opened at maximum point of ascent. This completed Section C of the L series, conducted from July 1937-August 1938. It had included seven proving-stand tests and 8 flight test attempts, all of which resulted in flights. Average interval between tests 25 days. For the entire L Series, from May 1936-August 1938, there were 13 proving-stand tests 13 and 17 flight test attempts, all of which were successful. Average interval between tests was 22-25 days
Talented German engineer, instrumental in developing the first liquid propellant rocket engines in Germany at VfR and in design and debugging of the V-2's engine. Unrelated to contemporary rocket engineers Walter Riedel and Walther Riedel. Killed in an automobile crash near Karlshagen, Germany.
In an attempt to reduce program costs, Defense Secretary Charles E. Wilson curtailed the planned production rates for Atlas, Titan, and Thor missiles to four missile each per month for the ICBMs. He also requested a study of the effects of a monthly production rate of 2-2-2 for the three programs.
NASA selected MIT's Instrumentation Laboratory to develop the guidance-navigation system for Project Apollo spacecraft. This first major Apollo contract was required since guidance-navigation system is basic to overall Apollo mission. The Instrumentation Laboratory of MIT, a nonprofit organization headed by C. Stark Draper, has been involved in a variety of guidance and navigation systems developments for 20 years. This first major Apollo contract had a long lead-time, was basic to the overall Apollo mission, and would be directed by STG.
Two Saturn milestones occurred on the same day. At Santa Susana, Calif., North American conducted the first full-duration captive firing of an S-II, second stage of the Saturn V. And at Sacramento, Douglas static-tested the first flight-model S-IVB, second stage for the Saturn IB. This latter marked the first time that a complete static test (encompassing vehicle checkout, loading, and firing) had been controlled entirely by computers.
A fire started in the silo during construction work. Two workers survived. The Titan 2 missile was fueled and in the silo but did not explode. The warhead had been removed from the site prior to the start of construction. The complex wass off alert status for the next 13 months during the accident investigation and repairs.
Based on confirmation during discussion with Melvin Savage of NASA Hq, MSC Gemini Program Deputy Manager Kenneth S. Kleinknecht advised of changes in hardware nomenclature for the Apollo Applications Program: The S-IVB spent-stage experiment was now the Orbital Workshop. The spent-stage experiment support module was now the airlock module. The spent S IVB was now the Orbital S-IVB.
MSC worked out a program with LaRC for use of the Lunar Landing Research Facility (LLRF) for preflight transition for LM flight crews before free-flight training in the lunar landing training vehicle. LM hardware sent to Langley to be used as training aids included two flight director attitude indicators, an attitude controller assembly, a thrust-translation controller assembly, and an altitude-rate meter.
Mishin pitched his first draft for the next five year plan, with an upgraded N1M to launch expeditions to the moon, Mars, and MKBS. Again his plans to improve the N1 were not well received (Mishin Diaries 2-213): Meeting with the DF Ustinov (22.00) on the rocket and space Five Year Plan. N1-L3 - Core package for lunar exploration. Expedition to Mars \ necessary to accelerate MKBS / MV Keldysh - Against OB-VI and against N1M with EYaRD. There are three preliminary designs for an expedition to Mars (TsKBEM, Chelomei, Yangel)
"Luch" - you need to develop (especially realistic anti-jamming measures). NA Pilyugin - against the N1M LV.
Russian pilot cosmonaut 1997-2014. Son of cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko. Graduated from Chernigov Higher Military Air School of Pilots, 1992 Russian Air Force. Cosmonaut training completed November 19. 1999. 2 spaceflights, 333.5 days in space. Flew to orbit on Soyuz TMA-15 (2009), Soyuz TMA-07M.
Mars probe intended to make a soft landing on Mars. Mars 7 reached Mars on 9 March 1974. Due to a problem in the operation of one of the onboard systems (attitude control or retro-rockets) the landing probe separated prematurely and missed the planet by 1,300 km. The early separation was probably due to a computer chip error which resulted in degradation of the systems during the trip to Mars. Ended up in a final heliocentric orbit 1.01 x 1.69 AU, 2.2 degree inclination, 574 day period.
Eighth CERS/ESRO satellite, first European Space Agency satellite. Launch time 0147:59 GMT. Argument of perigee 344.7 deg. Also registered by the United States in A/AC.105/INF.331 as 1975-72A, category B satellite with orbit 2203.9 min, 442 x 99002 km x 9 0.3 deg.
Lunar Sample Return. Landed on Moon 18 Aug 1976 at 02:00:00 GMT, Latitude 12.25 N, Longitude 62.20 E - Mare Crisium (Sea of Crisis). The last of the Luna series of spacecraft, Luna 24 was the third Soviet mission to retrieve lunar ground samples (the first two were returned by Luna 16 and 20). The mission successfully returned 170 grams of lunar samples to the Earth on 22 August 1976.
Rumba and Tango were the second pair of Cluster II magnetospheric research satellites of the European Space Agency. A series of five burns of the Fregat stage took them from an initial 190 km / 64.8 degree parking orbit to their final 17,200 x 120,600 km orbits inclined 90 degrees to the equator. They then separated from the Fregat and took up operations.