The NACA Committee on Aerodynamics recommended that NACA increase its research efforts on the problem of manned and unmanned flight at altitudes between 12 and 50 miles and at speeds of mach 4 through 10. As a result of this recommendation, the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory began preliminary studies on this project and immediately identified several problem areas. Two of these areas were aerodynamic heating and the achievement of stability and control at very high altitudes and speeds. Of the two, Langley considered aerodynamic heating to be the more serious, and, until this problem was resolved, the design of practical spacecraft impractical.
Inasmuch as availability of basic booster units threatened to limit selection of the most desirable space programs, the Secretary of the Air Force authorized an increase in missile production as follows: four more Thor boosters, delivery to begin in December 1958 at a rate of one a month; four more Atlas boosters, delivery to begin in May 1959 at a rate of one a month; and $8 million budgeted to the Advanced Research Projects Agency for procurement of four additional Lockheed 117L vehicles, delivery to begin January 1959 at a rate of one a month. (Memo, SAF to C/S USAF, 24 Jun 58, no subject.)
Titan I (M-l) was the first Series M missile and first inertially-guided Titan missile to be launched from Cape Canaveral. Essentially a Titan I with a Titan II inertial guidance system, M-l was only a partial success due to a second stage hydraulic failure and loss of control after sustainer engine ignition.
LaRC Director Floyd L. Thompson announced that two aerospace firms, The Boeing Company of Seattle and Douglas Aircraft Company, Inc., of Santa Monica, had been selected for final negotiations for study contracts of a Manned Orbital Research Laboratory (MORL) concept. Additional Details: here....
The cosmonauts are prepared by Keldysh, Tyulin, and Korolev for their first big press conference. Yazdovskiy has inserted a paragraph in the official press release about Tereshkova's poor emotional state while in space. He claims she experienced overwhelming emotions, tiredness, and a sharply reduced ability to work and complete all of her assigned tasks. Kamanin takes him aside and asks him not to exaggerate her difficulties during the flight. She only had tasks assigned for the first day. When the flight was extended for a second, and then a third day, there was essentially nothing for her to do. The ground command did nothing to support her during those additional days. She certainly was never tired, never objected, but rather did all she could to complete fully the flight program.
Gemini contractors proposed to launch a refurbished, modified Gemini around the moon by April 1967 for $ 350 million. The Titan 2-launched Gemini would rendezvous and dock with a Titan 3C-launched 'Double Transtage', which would propel the Gemini into a circumlunar trajectory. McDonnell-Douglas and Martin Marrietta's proposal was suppressed by NASA as a threat to the Apollo program.
The PAGEOS (Passive Geodetic Earth Orbiting Satellite) spacecraft was a 30.48-m inflatable sphere, and had no instrumentation on board. It was the second (following GEOS 1) NASA satellite in the National Geodetic Satellites Program. The launch, orbit, separation, inflation and initial operation were nominal, with more than 40 ground stations participating in the observation program. The orbit was generally considered too high for drag-density study, although some work was done in this area by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Additional Details: here....
Dobrovolsky and Patsayev successfully complete the Svinets experiment, fixing the position of a rocket launched at night. The N1 launch has been delayed again. Karas reports that telemetry shows many problems with the rocket, even just sitting on the pad. Kamanin sees this lousy rocket as a heavy cross for Soviet cosmonautics to bear. As for Soyuz 11, the Landing Commission discusses moving the landing from the 3rd to 2nd revolution on 30 July. But then the crew will land in the dark, while for the 3rd revolution landing they will touch down 24 minutes before sunrise. It is decided to continue planning for the third revolution, in case the crew needs immediate medical assistance.
First successful Almaz military manned space station flight. Tested a wide array of reconnaissance sensors. Following the successful Soyuz 14 and unsuccessful Soyuz 15 missions, on 23 September 1974 the station ejected a film return capsule. The KSI capsule suffered damage during re-entry but all the film was recoverable. On 24 January 1975 trials of the on-board 23 mm Nudelmann aircraft cannon (other sources say it was a Nudelmann NR-30 30 mm gun) were conducted. The next day the station was commanded to retrofire to a destructive re-entry over the Pacific Ocean. Although only one of three planned crews managed to board the station, that crew did complete the first completely successful Soviet space station flight. Additional Details: here....
Replaced Molniya 1-42. 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.
Manned three crew. Docked with Salyut 7. Transported to the Salyut-7 orbital station the Soviet-French international crew, comprising V A Dzhanibekov (USSR), A S Ivanchenkov (USSR) and Jean-Loup Chretien (France) to conduct scientific research and experiments.
RSLP (MSLS) IFT-1A. The target cluster consisted of 10 objects: one mock warhead, one bus (the stage of the missile which releases the warhead and decoys), and eight decoys. Three decoys were conical in shape, like the warhead, and five were spherical balloons. One balloon was large – 2.2 meters in diameter – and had a brighter IR signature than the mock warhead. The two medium-sized balloons were about as bright as the mock warhead; they did not deploy as expected and were not reliable parts of the testing program. The two small balloons were released via a canister and were much dimmer than the mock warhead.
Non-intercept fly-by to assess the performance of the Boeing-built EKV seeker, collect target phenomenological data, and evaluate (post-test) target-modeling and discrimination algorithms. Boeing was not chosen as the NMD EKV contractor, partly as a result of its system's performance on this test.
German-American radio systems engineer, first worked with early rocketeers in 1934. Member of the Rocket Team at Peenemuende and the United States until 1950; thereafter working in radio technology for North American Aviation and his own firm, Magnetic Research Corporation. Died a grapefruit rancher in Temecula, California.
The Delta 3-m payload fairing was successfully jettisoned and the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer was placed in a 754 km x 769 km x 25.0 degree initial orbit. After separation the Delta second stage then a depletion burn and was left in a 182 x 915 km x 19.1 degree orbit from which it would quickly decay out of orbit. Checkout of FUSE in orbit was proceeding well as of July 1.
Launch delayed from June 23. Geosynchronous communications satellite. Stationed at 11 deg W. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 11 deg W in 2000. As of 5 September 2001 located at 10.99 deg W drifting at 0.005 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 11 located at 11.00W drifting at 0.005E degrees per day.
Launch delayed from August 2001. The refurbished Titan 2 missile put the NOAA M satellite on a suborbital trajectory of about -2500 x 820 km x 98 deg. at 1829 UTC. At 1837 UTC the NOAA M propulsion module fired its ATK/Thiokol Star 37XFP solid motor for the orbit insertion burn, followed by a hydrazine trim burn to put the satellite in an 807 x 822 km x 98.8 deg operational orbit. NOAA M became NOAA 17 on entering service with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as the primary morning weather satellite, supplementing the NOAA 16 afternoon satellite. Built by Lockheed Martin, NOAA M carried weather imagers and microwave and infrared sounders, as well as a SARSAT search-and-rescue package. It had an on-orbit mass of 1475 kg.
The astronauts exited the station at 21:56 GMT on what was to be a six hour spacewalk to replace a failed gyroscope electronics module. The EVA had already been delayed from 10, then 16 June. The original plan was to use American suits, but a coolant leak in one of those forced the crew to use Russian suits. This in turn meant they would have to exist from the airlock in the station's Russian Pirs module, which in turn extended the distance they would have to travel outside the station to 30 m. Eight minutes after exiting the hatch, a serious leak was detected by Russian ground controllers in Fincke's suit. The crew was called back in and it was planned that the EVA would be repeated six days later.
US Navy Multiple User Object System's Space Vehicle 3 was launched as MUOS 5. The Atlas 5 rocket made three burns to 167 x 659 km x 28 deg, 191 x 32930 x 26 deg and then 3802 x 35786 km x 19 deg, and deployed MUOS which will use its Japanese BT-4 thruster to reach GEO over the Indian Ocean as an in-orbit spare for the system, whose 4 operational satellites were over the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the Americas. MUOS 5 had problems with its propulsion system and was parked in a 15242 x 35703 km x 9.8 deg intermediate geotransfer orbit.