Hellendoorn, rocket fired, impacted the crowded Rex Cinema in Antwerp, in the Keyserlei, resulting in 567 casualties to soldiers and civilians, 291 injured and 11 houses were destroyed. 296 of the dead & 194 of the injured were U.S., British, & Canadian soldiers. (This was the single highest death total from one rocket attack during the war in Europe.)

The Scientific Advisory Committee to the Secretary of the Air Force met at the ballistic missile division. The committee reviewed Air Force plans for advanced ballistic missile and space programs and recommended that space technology development be managed by the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division. (Early BMD-ARDC General Space Chronology, 11 Feb 59, prep by AFBMD Hist Ofc.)

MSC and the U.S. Air Force Aerospace Medical Division completed a joint manned environmental experiment at Brooks Air Force Base, Tex. After spending a week in a sea-level atmospheric environment, the test subjects breathed 100 percent oxygen at 3.5 newtons per square centimeter (5 psi) at a simulated altitude of 8,230 meters (27,000 feet) for 30 days. They then reentered the test capsule for observation in a sea-level environment for the next five days. This experiment demonstrated that men could live in a 100 percent oxygen environment under these conditions with no apparent ill effects.

The cosmonaut weds at the TsPK cosmonaut centre, and 80 guests attend. Of the female cosmonauts, only Ponomaryova is not yet married. However the next female flight will be made no earlier than 1965-1966. Tereshkova looks tired after her tour to Southeast Asia - and she's supposed to go to Ghana on 10 January! Korolev claims that the Soyuz schedule, as laid out in the resolution of 4 December 1963, is still realistic. He will have the first Soyuz flight in August 1964 and the second and third in September 1964. Ivanovskiy doesn't believe it will be possible to make any flights until 1965. Korolev and Tsybin disccuss Shcherbakov's design for a rocket-propelled high-altitude glider. This concept was supported by the VVS, but Dementiev was against it and it was killed in the bureaucracy.

Gemini 7 has the space flight duration record, and Gemini 6 has achieved the first rendezvous in orbit. Yesterday Pashkov sent a letter to Smirnov, asking that new series of Voskhod spacecraft be ordered as insurance in case of further delays in development of the Soyuz spacecraft. Kamanin believes he sees panic setting in with the leadership. The next day Kamanin attempts to call Korolev, only to find he is out sick.

Gemini 6 splashed down near the aircraft carrier Wasp at 15:28 GMT. The capsule was lifted to the carrier deck with the crew aboard. When the hatch doors were opened, the spacemen gave the thumbs-up while the Navy band crashed in with 'Anchors Aweigh'. It was the first recovery carried live via satellite television.

In a four-hour meeting, a number of issues are dealt with. First point was military control of the KIK control centre for lunar missions. A civilian mission control centre is requested. Next, the issue of recovery of L1 and L3 capsules in the Indian Ocean. The re-entry corridor within which landings might occur is 6000 km long and 100 km wide, stretching from Antarctica to India. To cover it will require 20 naval vessels, each with a helicopter, and 10 An-22 or Tu-95 long-range maritime reconnaissance and relay aircraft. Total cost: 600 million roubles. As Kamanin sees it, all this is due to Mishin's inability to design spacecraft capable of precision landing that also incorporates the landing and recovery aids requested by the VVS. Kamanin notes in his diary violent criticism of Mishin's disregard for the safety of the cosmonaut crews, development of crew-associated items at the last minute, unrealistic schedules and expectations, etc. etc. Severin reports that the lunar space suit he is designing will support the cosmonaut for three days, during walks extending 5 km. To do this requires a bulky suit weighing 100 kg. Kamanin disagrees, saying what is needed is to develop a simple and safe approach for the first landing, with a minimum programme for the cosmonaut - not the fantastic schemes of Mishin.

Military-Industrial Commission (VPK) Decree 'On establishment of the Planeta-S weather satellite system' was issued. The resolution ordered development of a third generation system. This used the Planeta-S sensor package in the non-co-orbital Meteor-3 system plus the geostationary system Elektro, which was to begin tests in 1982. Elektro suffered numerous delays due to equipment and software problems. Flight trials of Meteor-3 did not begin until 1984, and there was only a single launch of Elektro, in 1994.

Longitude 109.0. Function - telecommunications. Operating entity - Telesat Canada. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit over the Americas at 109 deg W in 1978-1986 As of 29 August 2001 located at 59.48 deg E drifting at 1.672 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 9 located at 13.64W drifting at 1.622W degrees per day.

First use of the Delta Redundant Inertial Measurement System (DRIMS). DRIMS improved the inertial measurement unit introduced with DIGS, but kept the DIGS guidance computer. DRIMS added redundancy on all axes of motion. The Delta upper stage was tracked as a separate functional object with this designation on this launch.

New generation Soyuz capsule; unmanned flight to Salyut 6. Docked with Salyut 6. Recovered March 25, 1980 21:47 GMT. Unmanned test of Soyuz T design.
Officially: Complex experimental testing of new on-board systems and assemblies under various flight conditions and operation in conjunction with the Salyut-6 orbital station.

French communications; 3 deg E. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 3 deg E in 1992; 8 deg W in 1992-1999 As of 5 September 2001 located at 8.05 deg W drifting at 0.004 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 11 located at 111.59E drifting at 4.763W degrees per day.

Global maritime and mobile communications; 178 deg E. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 178 deg E in 1992-1997; 65 deg E in 1997-1999 As of 29 August 2001 located at 65.01 deg E drifting at 0.003 deg E per day. As of 2007 Mar 9 located at 155.28W drifting at 15.158W degrees per day.

Stationed at 97 deg W. Spacecraft engaged in practical applications and uses of space technology such as weather or communication (US Cat C). Launch vehicle put payload into geosynchronous transfer orbit with IFR trajectory option. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 97 deg W in 1994-1997 As of 5 September 2001 located at 100.42 deg W drifting at 0.039 deg E per day. As of 2007 Mar 10 located at 97.36W drifting at 0.024W degrees per day.

Stationed at 95 deg E. Relaying of telegraph and telephone information. Improved Altair/SR geosynchronous satellite for communication with Mir space station and other orbital spacecraft. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 95 deg E in 1994-1997; 16 deg W in 1997-1998 As of 4 September 2001 located at 143.35 deg W drifting at 0.319 deg E per day. As of 2007 Mar 9 located at 64.95W drifting at 0.320E degrees per day.

This freighter will undock from Mir on 17.12.1997 at 0602 UTC. After the undocking the Russian-German experiment with the observation satellite Inspektor will take place.

Inspektor:

On 17.12.97 the Inspektor will be launched from Progress-M36 for a number of inspection flights. The separation from Progress-M36 : 0735 UTC. Immediately after the undocking the Inspektor will make a flight around Progress-M36 and transmit images from the freighter to a computer on board Mir. Solovyov will steer the Progress-M36 and the Inspektor with the system TORU. On 18.12.1997 Inspektor will fly around the Mir to make images of the outside of the complex. Plans with the Progress-M36: This freighter will not return to Mir for a redocking but decay in the atmosphere soon after the deployment of Inspektor.

Progress-M37:

The launch of this new freighter from Baykonur is on schedule for 20.12.1997. Rendezvous and docking with the Mir will take place on 22.12.1997.

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

Much of the last week, flight controllers in Houston and Moscow have managed battery charging and watched over other systems on the station. Electrical power management continues to be the focus using four of six batteries inside Zarya. Batteries 1 and 2 remain disconnected from the electrical bus. Additional Details: here....

Engineering Test Satellite-8 was a Japanese prototype/operational demonstration for a number of new technologies: a large satellite bus, large-scale deployable 40-m-span antennae, mobile satellite communications system, mobile satellite digital multimedia broadcasting, and basic positioning using high-accuracy time standard devices. It will be positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 146 degrees East. JAXA developed two portable terrestrial systems to communicate directly with the satellite - a tiny telephone and a portable laptop computer. The satellite was to have a lifetime of ten years. As of 2007 Mar 11 located at 145.97E drifting at 0.010W degrees per day.

Tacsat-2 was a prototype rapid development/rapid deployment tactical military satellite that provided American Joint Task Force commanders direct control of a satellite providing both SIGINT and imagery with a resolution of better than 1-m. The known communications payload used an 8 GHz (X-band) downlink. This was the first orbital launch from Wallops Island since 1985. TacSat-2 was to have been launched by a Falcon-1 from Vandenberg into a sun-synchronous orbit. However, the failure of Falcon-1 on its long-delayed maiden in March 2006 caused AFRL to award a new launch contract for TacSat-2 and TacSat-3 to OSC in May 2006. The launch was achieved using OSC's Minotaur launch vehicle only seven months after contract award.

3U cubesat launched as a secondary payload. A collaboration of NASA, industry, and local universities resulted in this fully-automated, miniaturized spaceflight system that provided life support, nutrient delivery, and performed assays to monitor genetic changes of E. coli bacteria in space conditions.

For the National University of Singapore, the 78 kg Kent Ridge 1 satellite developed using the TUBSAT LEOS-50 bus by Berlin Space Technologies, a spinoff of the old TUBSAT group at Technische Universitat Berlin. KR-1 carried two low-resoluton hyperspectral Earth imagers and a 6-meter-resolution imager.