Goddard realises his earlier nested gun concept is not practical - he calculates it will take 56 tons of explosive to launch a 500 pound payload to an altitude of 2,000 miles. He realises Lox/LH2 will make the ideal rocket fuel, although he is still thinking in terms of explosive pulses.

Titan test missile B7A completed a 2,200-mile flight, achieving successful staging and ignition of the second stage engine at high altitude. The Stage II engine, XLR-91-AJ-1, performed as planned, and the missile impacted almost exactly on target. This was the first successful Titan launch and flight since 4 May 1959.

The missile was supposed to be launched at 18:00, but is then delayed to 24:00 due to technical problems. It is a clear night, illuminated by the moon, and the missile takes off at midnight. The first three minutes of flight are successful, but then the second stage fails to ignite. The missiles impacts 520 km downrange from the launch pad.

Kamanin will organise the cosmonauts into two groups: the first group will be commanded by Nikolayev, and the latest group by Beregovoi. They will be assigned to support and train seven missions: military space (reconnaissance, interceptor, and combat spacecraft); space navigation; life support and rescue systems; communications and telemetry systems; scientific orbital stations; lunar fly-by; and lunar landing expeditions. All of this may be for nought, since Marshall Malinovskiy has said that heavy launch vehicles and lunar flights have no military utility and should be funded and handled by the Academy of Science.

Smirnov again questions the chief designers about the reliability of the parachute systems developed by Tkachev. The VVS remains troubled as to the reliability of these systems. Recently the system has been tested at Fedosiya to increase its rating to 2900 to 3200 kg for use on Voskhod-3. Three parachutes in these tests suffered rips during deployment. The Voskhod-3 capsule will weigh 3000 kg. Tkachev says he will guarantee its safety, but VVS and LII specialists do not share this optimism. Leonov, Gagarin, and various cosmonauts ask Kamanin to stop further showings of the new film comedy "30-3", which they say denigrates Soviet cosmonauts. However a showing to the leadership is enjoyed by all, and they see no grounds for surpressing it.

Launch delayed from original schedule of January 30, and was made just one day after the Columbia disaster resulted in a suspension of shuttle flights. Docked successfully with the ISS on 14:49 GMT on 4 February 2003. Undocked from Zvezda on August 27 and deorbited later the same day.

Navigation satellite. It did not reach geostationary orbit until early April following deployment problems with its solar panels and reports of US detection of a debris cloud at the time of the original expected apogee firing. As of 2010 reported to have suffered a control failure.

Fourth Iranian satellite, and Iran's first successful orbital launch since February 2012. Fajr (Aurora) had a technology payload with a cold-gas thruster developed by Iran Electronics Industries. There is suggestive evidence (mostly based on satellite imagery of launch pad damage revealed by the magazine Jane's Intelligence Review) that Iran had two launch failures in 2012, as well as more speculative evidence of further launch failures since then. The satellite did not seem to make any orbital maneuvers. The orbit decayed from an initial 223 km x 470 km to 196 km x 293 km by February 22, and then after falling to 134 km x 155 km early on February 26 it reentered. The Safir rocket stage orbit decayed a bit more slowly, and was at 203 km x 325 km on Feb 26.