The USAF released the full-scale development contract for the Navaho G-26, consisting of 10 cruise missiles, 13 boosters, and five N-6 stellar-inertial navigation systems (early flights would be radio-controlled). First delivery was scheduled for 1953 and first launch February 1956.

Motorola, Inc., received a follow-on contract from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the manufacture and integration of at least three S-band receiving subsystems for NASA's Deep Space Network and Manned Space Flight Network ground stations. Within the unified S-band system adopted by NASA, receiving equipment of the two networks would be identical except for a slight difference in operating frequency. This enabled all communications between ground stations and spacecraft to be on a single frequency. It also allowed more efficient power transfer between the directive antennas and the spacecraft and would greatly reduce galactic noise encountered with UHF frequencies.

NASA Technical Services constructed the molds that would be used to make the one-piece bubble helmets for the Apollo space suits. These forms would be delivered to General Electric and to Texstar, the two firms that would actually fabricate the helmets, with the first shell expected about mid-January.

At the same time, Crew Systems Division completed drop tests on the new helmet concept. The division's engineers also began designing and fabrication of support items (neck rings, feed ports, and skull caps), as well as exploring methods of maintaining the helmet's hygiene and habitability.

A new Minuteman Systems Management Directive was issued covering approved actions to implement the changes in the Minuteman program resulting from Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara's decision in approved Format B of 8 December. This SMD approved a Minuteman force of 1,000 missiles deployed in six wings with 20 squadrons by the close of FY1972. Production of the Mark 12 and Mark 17 reentry systems was approved along with other improvements in the Minuteman system.

Test of Tsyklon 2 booster; mass model of ASAT. When the satellite decayed over US Midwest on 28 August 1970, teams of the USAF 1127th Special Group were able to recover six pieces from five locations in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. These showed that the necessary operational systems - translation engines, sensors, weapons systems - were dummied by steel weights. However factory markings on the recovered material proved to the Air Force analysts that they were dealing with an ASAT weapon.

A new DOS schedule is agreed by the Chief Designers. DOS#1 launch is delayed 40 days to 15 March 1971. Kamanin thinks the first half of April is more likely. He is still arguing the Soyuz 10 flight duration with Mishin - Kamanin won't accept more than 20-25 days, Mishin has been ordered to fly 30 days.

An assessment of the feasibility of providing a crew rescue capability for Skylab was conducted by KSC, MSC, and MSFC during 1970. The study culminated in a NASA Hq decision to provide a limited rescue capability should return capability fail while the CSM were docked to the OWS. The rescue vehicle for the first two manned Skylab missions would be the next CSM in flow at KSC. Should a rescue call occur, the CSM next in flow would be modified so as to permit a five- man carrying capacity. It would be launched with a two-man crew and return with the additional three astronauts.

Replaced Molniya 1-45. Uncertain if Molniya-1T model was Molniya-1 or Molniya-1T. 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.

International Space Station flight controllers successfully completed two test firings of the Zarya module's two large thrusters this week, checking out the software and systems required for an automated rendezvous and docking with the third station module, scheduled to be launched from Russia in mid-1999. Additional Details: here....

Launch delayed from November 24, December 22 . Progress M-51 docked with the Zvezda module of the International Space Station on December 25 at 23:58 GMT, bringing critical food supplies to the EO-10 crew. Press hype during the delays prior to the launch had portrayed the situation as one where failure of the Progress to dock would have required the crew to either return to earth or starve.

Undocked from at 16:06 GMT on February 27, 2005, in order to clear the port for Progress M-52, which would launch the next day. Progress M-51 lowered its perigee at around 18:30 GMT and remained in orbit for several days. FInally an engine firing was commanded, bringing it down in a destructive re-entry over the Pacific Ocean on March 9.

Resupply spacecraft that docked with the Pirs port of the International Space Station at 08:14 GMT on 26 December. Undocked on 4 February 2008 at 10:32 GMT and then carried out Earth observations for ten days before being deorbited on 15 February at 09:44 GMT.

First launch of the Angara-A5 booster, composed of five standard URM-1 modules and a Briz-M upper stage. Four URM-1's, clustered around a URM-1 in the core, formed the first stage. The core URM-1 was the second stage. The four first stage URM-1's separated at 06:01 GMT at an altitude of 82 km; the core URM-1 shut down and separated at 06:03 GMT at an altitude of 148 km, reentering downrange near Tomsk. The nose fairing was jettisoned 10 seconds later. The third stage was a URM-2, powered by the RD-0124A engine; it reached a marginally suborbital trajectory and, after separating from the upper composite section, reentered in the Philippine Sea at a range of 2320 km from the launch site. Meanwhile, the fourth stage, a standard Briz-M (S/N 88801) propelled the stack into a 250 km, 63 deg parking orbit with a burn starting at 06:11 GMT. After coasting to the equator, two perigee burns at 07:03 and 09:26 GMT boosted the apogee to 5,000 km and then 35,800 km, while reducing inclination to 60.6 deg. The Briz-M's additional propellant tank (DTB), now empty, was jettisoned into a 433 km x 35,808 km x 60.6 deg orbit. The payload on this flight was a dummy satellite called the IPM. The stack coasted to apogee and at 14:44 GMT, began the fourth burn to enter circular geosynchronous orbit. At 14:57 GMT the Briz sent a simulated separation command, but the payload remained attached to the stage as intended. After a few more hours, two burns of the Briz stage's SOZ auxiliary engines moved the stack to a graveyard orbit a few hundred kilometers above GEO. This was the first GEO mission ever launched from Plesetsk.