The VfR fires its 'Kegelduese' liquid oxygen and gasoline-fueled rocket motor in a demonstration for the Director of the Chemisch-Technische Reichsanstalt in an attempt to secure financial support. Nebel had arranged the demonstration and runs the Kegelduese for 90 seconds. It generates 7 kgf and consumes 6 kg of liquid oxygen and 1 kg of gasoline in that time (specific impulse 90 seconds). Participating are Oberth, Nebel, Riedel, Ley, and Von Braun. Nebel's Mirak is not yet ready to test.

In its second successful flight test, the Thor/Able (Number 1.19) advanced reentry test vehicle demonstrated proper reentry of the advanced General Electric ablative nose cone during a 5,300-mile test flight. Two successful tests established the two-stage Thor/Able as a reliable vehicle for further special test programs. This allowed the Air Force and other government agencies to complete plans for more advanced space programs. Mouse 'Wickie' not recovered; nose cone lost.

Advanced Research Projects Agency representatives visited Army Ordnance Missile Command to discuss studies of a Maneuverable Recoverable Space Vehicle (MRSV). The general purpose was to identify U.S. space needs before 1970 which might require vehicles of this type.

Grumman authorized Hamilton Standard to begin development of the environmental control system (ECS) for the LEM. The cost-plus-incentive-fee contract was valued at $8,371,465. The parts of the ECS to be supplied by Hamilton Standard were specified by Grumman.

McDonnell Douglas and North American to conduct phase B planning studies of 12-man orbiting space stations for the mid-1970s. NASA announced selection of two aerospace firms--McDonnell Douglas and North American-to conduct phase B planning studies of 12-man orbiting space stations that could be developed by the mid-1970s. The parallel 11-month program definition studies were a prelude to even larger semipermanent space bases during the later 1970s and 1980s.

Flight Test Missile 970, a Minuteman I (LGM-30B), was the 300th Minuteman missile launched from Vandenberg AFB and the first missile launched in support of the Army's Safeguard System Test Targets Program (SSTTP). Since the first Minuteman missile was fired on 28 September 1962, 165 LGM-30Bs, 50 LGM-30AS, 75 Minuteman lis and 10 Minuteman Ills had been launched from Vandenberg.

Unusable orbit. Spacecraft engaged in practical applications and uses of space technology such as weather or communication (US Cat C). As of 28 August 2001 located at 175.58 deg E drifting at 7.155 deg E per day. As of 2007 Mar 9 located at 110.93W drifting at 7.169E degrees per day.

Further meetings with Mishin's section leaders on 15 and 23 July leading up to a meeting of the N1-L3 Expert Commission with SA Afanasiev on 25 July where the N1-L3 is finally killed.. It is agreed that it could never have landed a cosmonaut on the moon:
1. Agree that the N1-L3 could not land a cosmonaut.
2. LOK, LK - cancelled.
3. N-1 to be used for MKBS, Mars 75, 77, etc.
4. Lunar Expedition - proceed. (but the solution is not clear. Machines may be better.)
5. Costs for N1-L3 to 1 January 1971: 2.9 billion rubles. Required to complete - 3.0 billion.
6. Unreliability must be solved through reliability testing.
7. Extend the use of N1 (LKI, Mars-75, Mars-77, MKBS).
8. What you need to alter under based on this testing.
9. Proceed with development of hydrogen stages, but you need to use the existing stages for now. (Mishin Diaries 2-336) l

The first Long Tank Thrust Augmented Thor/Delta to be launched from Vandenberg AFB using nine solid rocket motors successfully placed the Environmental Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS-A) in orbit. Earth Resources Technology Satellite. Spacecraft engaged in practical applications and uses of space technology such as weather or communication (US Cat C).

Continued operation of the long-range telephone and telegraph radio-communication system within the Soviet Union and transmission of USSR central television programmes to stations in the Orbita and participating international networks (international cooperation scheme).

Some minor experiment hardware problems developed during the final days of the mission, but for the most part the crew members worked through their flight plan - which included 23 independent experiments - with few difficulties. After a relatively quiet day of work on the 22nd, the major part of the 23rd was devoted to preparing for and conducting the doppler tracking experiment (MA-089). The day was also marked by a press conference from space and jettison of the docking module. Additional Details: here....

Continued operation of the long-range telephone and telegraph radio-communication system within the Soviet Union and transmission of USSR central television programmes to stations in the Orbita and participating international networks (international cooperation scheme).

Statsionar-2. Provision of uninterrupted round the clock telephone and telegraph radiocommunication in the USSR and simultaneous transmission of colour and black-and-white USSR central television programmes to stations in the Orbita network. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit over the Indian Ocean at 35 deg E in 1977-1980 As of 30 August 2001 located at 44.45 deg E drifting at 0.191 deg W per day. As of 2007 Feb 27 located at 49.63E drifting at 0.221E degrees per day.

Manned two crew. Transported to the Salyut-6 station the sixth international crew under the Intercosmos programme, comprising V V Gorbatko (USSR) and Pham Tuan (Viet Nam), to conduct scientific research and experiments. Returned crew of Soyuz 35 to Earth. Recovered October 11, 1980 9:50 GMT.

STS-93 was first rolled out to pad 39B on June 7 1999. The Chandra/IUS-27 vehicle was placed in the payload canister on June 19. The first launch attempt was on July 20, but controllers aborted the launch at T-6 seconds, just before main engine ignition, due to a data spike in hydrogen pressure data. This was determined to be due to a faulty sensor and a second attempt was on July 22. A lightning storm prevented launch during the 46 minute window, and the launch was again scrubbed. Finally the vehicle lifted off the pad on July 23, but five seconds after launch a short in an electrical bus brought down two of the three main engine controllers. Backup controllers took over, but a further failure on the backup controller bus would have resulted in engine shutdown and the first ever attempt at an RTLS (Return To Launch Site) abort. To further complicate matters engine 3 (SSME 2019) had a hydrogen leak throughout the ascent, causing the engine to run hot. Controllers sweated as temperatures neared redline. The hot engine's controller compensated as programmed by using additional liquid oxygen propellant. The final result was that the shuttle ran out of gas - main engine cut-off (MECO) was at 04:39 GMT, putting Columbia into a 78 km x 276 km x 28.5 degree transfer orbit. Columbia was 1,700 kg short of oxygen propellant and 5 meters/sec slower than planned. The OMS-2 engine burn at 05:12 GMT circularised the orbit 10 km lower than planned.

The orbiter payload bay contained only the Chandra spacecraft, the IUS, and the IUS tilt tableTthe following payloads were carried in the shuttle's cabin: STL-B (Space Tissue Loss), CCM (Cell culture module), SAREX-II (Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment), EarthKam, PGIM (Plant Growth Investigations in Microgravity), CGBA (Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus), MEMS (Micro-electric Mechanical System), and BRIC (Biological Research in Canisters) and SWUIS (the Southwest Ultraviolet Imaging System, an 0.18-m UV telescope to be used for airglow and planetary observations); GOSAMR (the Gelation of Sols: Applied Microgravity Research experiment) and LFSAH, the Lightweight Flexible Solar Array Hinge. MSX and SIMPLEX experiments were also to be carried out.

Chandra/IUS-27 was deployed from Columbia at 11:47 GMT July 23. Flight duration was limited; this was the heaviest shuttle (122,534 kg) and heaviest payload (19,736 kg) to that date. Columbia landed at 03:20 GMT on July 28 on runway 33 at Kennedy Space Center. Post-flight inspection found the presence of holes in the cooling lines on the nozzle of SSME 2019 (engine 3) which caused a hydrogen leak. A loose repair pin in the engine broke free and caused the failure. The cause of the short was found to be chaffed wiring inside the shuttle. The entire fleet was grounded for inspection and replacement of wiring as necessary.

The Chandra Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility was one of NASA's four Great Observatories (along with Hubble Space Telescope, Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, and the SIRTF). Chandra will study the composition and nature of galaxies, stellar objects and interstellar phenomena as well as basic issues in theoretical physics using the most sensitive X-ray telescope ever built. The IUS under-performed and placed Chandra in an orbit about 900 km lower than planned. Therefore Chandra's own IPS propulsion system had to be used to make up the difference. The first such manoeuvre was at 01:11 GMT on July 25 when the IPS engines fired for 5 minutes to raise perigee to 1192 km. Further perigee burns on July 31, August 4, and August 7 raised the orbit to its final 10,000 km x 140.000 km. Additional Details: here....

Launch delayed from July 12, 15 and 22. The GOES-M weather satellite was placed by the Atlas AC-142 Centaur stage into a 164 x 505 km parking orbit and then a super synchronous transfer orbit of 274 x 42275 km x 20 deg. GOES-M was a Loral 1300-series satellite with a single solar array and a solar attitude control sail. Launch mass was 2279 kg and dry mass 1042 kg. The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites were developed by NASA-Goddard and were transferred to the NOAA weather agency when operational. In addition to the usual weather imager/sounder, GOES-M carried a new solar soft X-ray imager. Earlier GOES satellites carried simple X-ray collimator detectors, but the new SXI was a full-fledged grazing incidence telescope similar to the SXT on Japan's Yohkoh satellite. The GOES-M satellite was redesignated GOES 12 once in orbit.

GOES 12 was a 980 kg, 973 W spacecraft that carried an IR imager, a "sounder", and an X-ray imager. The IR imager was a Cassegrain telescope covering five wavelength channels, 0.55-0.75, 3.80-4.00, 6.50-7.00, 10.20-11.20, and 11.50-12.50 microns. It provided images covering 3,000 km x 3,000 km every 41 seconds, by scanning the area in 16 square kilometer sections. The "sounder" provided vertical distribution of temperature, moisture and ozone, by passive monitoring in 18 depth-dependent wavelengths. (Long wave IR: 14.71, 14.37, 14.06, 13.64, 13.37, 12.66, and 12.02 microns. Medium wave IR: 11.03, 9.71, 7.43, 7.02, and 6.51 microns. Short wave IR: 4.57, 4.52, 4.45, 4.13, 3.98, and 3.74 microns. There was also another band at visible wavelength 0.7 microns, to provide pictures of cloud tops.) The sounder covered an area of 3,000 km x 3,000 km in about 42 minutes. Another instrument package named SEM (Space Environment Monitor) monitored the energetic electrons and protons in the magnetosphere and the X-rays from the Sun. The above three had been carried on the earlier GOES missions, but GOES 12 carried also an X-ray imager providing an X-ray (about 0.1-1.0 nm wavelength) picture of the solar disk. For some months, the spacecraft was to be on standby, to be activated and moved to a desired longitude. As of 5 September 2001 located at 89.93 deg W drifting at 0.001 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 11 located at 74.73W drifting at 0.014E degrees per day.

The crew emerged from the Quest airlock at 10:24 GMT. A video stanchion was removed from the ESP-2 external spares cache and installed on an external truss of the station. 736 kg of redundant storage structures and equipment were removed and pushed by the astronauts away from the station, into orbits that would eventually decay and reenter the atmosphere.