The first missile shipped directly from the Chrysler Factory to the test site to be flight tested was launched at 0312 hours EST from AMR The flight was successful. Actual range was 138.178 nm; 2.2 nm under; and 1250 meters left of the intended impact point. The missile functioned properly until 182 seconds when an unexplainable pitch deviation caused a slow tilting of the missile top section. The cut-off function at 120 seconds and the separation function at 135 seconds, after flight zero time, were both satisfactory. Missed aimpoint by 4,183 m.

Homer E. Newell, Director of NASA's Office of Space Sciences, summarized results of studies by Langley Research Center and Space Technology Laboratories on an unmanned lunar orbiter spacecraft. These studies had been prompted by questions of the reliability and photographic capabilities of such spacecraft. Both studies indicated that, on a five-shot program, the probability was 0.93 for one and 0.81 for two successful missions; they also confirmed that the spacecraft would be capable of photographing a landed Surveyor to assist in Apollo site verification.

VVS officers meet to plan training for the Voskhod 1 crew. It is agreed that a passenger-cosmonaut can be trained within three months. That means, in order to be ready for an August mission, the candidates for the scientist- and physician-cosmonaut seats will have to be identified, screened, and selected by 30 April. It is estimated that 30 physician and 30 scientist candidates will have to be submitted to the medical commission in order for the necessary six finalists to get through the screening. Kamanin privately believes this is all an insanely dangerous adventure. Smirnov, Keldysh, and Korolev have gone off the rails in their desire to make sure that the Americans do not seize and space 'firsts' once the Gemini flights begin.

UR-500K/L1 project will consist of three phases. Phase I will be dedicated to development of the Block D translunar stage, using prototype, incomplete L1 spacecraft. Phase II will conduct lunar flybys with complete but unmanned L1 spacecraft. Phase III will fly Soviet cosmonauts around the moon. The N1/L3 project will consist of five phases. Phase I will use the N1 and the 7K-L1A spacecraft. This will be used primarily to test out the Block G translunar and Block D lunar orbit insertion stages, but will also conduct lunar flybys, returning photographs of the lunar surface to the earth. Phase II will use N1's to fly L3 spacecraft with an unpiloted LOK lunar orbiter and an unpiloted LK lunar lander. Phase III, the first manned missions, will use N1's to fly L3 spacecraft with a piloted LOK lunar orbiter and an unpiloted LK lunar lander. Phase IV will fly a piloted LOK lunar orbiter and an unpiloted LK lunar lander, that will be landed on the lunar surface. In Phase V N1-L3 number 10L is to launch the first manned landing on the moon in September 1968. N1-L3 numbers 11L and 12L were back-ups, in the event any of the planned earlier missions failed. Additional Details: here....

Six Apollo spacecraft are to be flown into earth orbit in 1968, four unmanned and two manned. Five flights are planned for 1969, including the first landing on the moon. Beyond this is the Apollo Applications Program. Expenditures for this are planned as $179 million in 1968 and $435 million in 1969, leading to the first orbital laboratory in 1970.

Production Verification Missile (PVM)-13 was successfully launched from Vandenberg AFB. It was the last flight of the Wing VI hybrid explicit program prior to it becoming operational. It also served as a development test and evaluation/initial operational test and evaluation flight for the upgrade Wing VI configuration.

38 C-band and 10 Ku-band transponders. Placed in unusable low earth orbit after second stage separation failure. In May 1992 shuttle STS-49 snared the satellite, and in three EVA's the crew attached a new perigee boost motor, which then reboosted the satellite to geosynchrounous orbit. Positioned at 34 deg W in 1992-1997; 24 deg W in 1997-2001. Later assigned to Intelsat spin-off New Skies, which positioned it at 340º East, from where it provided C-band coverage of the entire Atlantic region, including virtually all of Latin America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the eastern half of North America. As an inclined orbit satellite, IS-603 was best suited for voice/data trunking and video contribution, but could also be used for carrier-scale IP services, notably network bridging and expansion. It supplemented the prime Atlantic region coverage provided by the station-kept NSS 7 satellite, located at 338º East. As of 2007 Mar 11 located at 19.96W drifting at 0.012W degrees per day.

Mir Expedition EO-18. Soyuz TM-21 carried the EO-18 Mir crew and American Norman Thagard. Thagard was the first American to be launched in a Soyuz. Soyuz docked with Mir at 07:45:26 GMT on March 16 . On July 4 Soyuz TM-21 undocked and backed off to a distance of 100 m from Mir. The US space shuttle Atlantis, with the EO-18 crew aboard, then undocked and began a flyaround at a distance of 210 m, while the EO-19 crew aboard Soyuz took pictures before redocking with the station. Soyuz TM-21 again undocked with the EO-19 crew on September 11 from the Kvant rear port on Mir and landed at 50 deg 41'N 68 deg 15'E, 108 km northeast of Arkalyk in Kazakhstan, at 06:52:40 GMT .

GEO. 26 C-band, 14 K-band transponders. Geostationary at 0.9W. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 1 deg W in 1996-1999 As of 5 September 2001 located at 0.97 deg W drifting at 0.001 deg E per day. As of 2007 Mar 10 located at 53.03W drifting at 0.007W degrees per day.

Progress M-38 was specially modified to carry the second VDU (Vynosnaya Dvigatel'naya Ustanovka, External Engine Unit) propulsion unit. The VDU was mounted externally on a special structure between the cargo module and the service module, replacing the OKD fuel section present on normal Progress vehicles. The crew spacewalks to extract the VDU from Progress and place it on the end of the Sofora boom extending from the Kvant module. The VDU was used to provide attitude control capability for the station. By 03:20 GMT on March 15 1998 Progress M-38 had successfully completed its first two orbital manoeuvres. It replaced Progress M-37 at the docking port on the Kvant module, with a successful docking on March 16 1998 at 22:45 GMT. Undocked May 15 at 1844 UTC, freeing up the docking port on the Kvant module for Progress M-39. Deorbited over Pacific May 15, 1998.

The Expedition 6 crew aboard the International Space Station, Commander Ken Bowersox, Flight Engineer Nikolai Budarin and NASA ISS Science Officer Don Pettit, spent their week doing routine maintenance, completing the troubleshooting of the Microgravity Science Glovebox and continuing a survey of the outside of the station using the Canadarm2 robotic arm. Additional Details: here....

The Briz M stage failed during its second burn, shutting down by 2 minutes 13 seconds early, leaving the satellite in a 770 km x 26447 km x 49.2 deg orbit. The spacecraft separated and raised this to 772 km x 35576 km x 49.0 deg, but operational geostationary orbit could not be attained and the satellite was a writeoff. AMC 14 had a total mass at launch of 4140 kg of which 2130 kg was propellant. The final orbit attained was an inclined orbit at geostationary altitude.

first ESA ExoMars mission. The main spacecraft on this mission was the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), which entered Mars orbit to study its atmosphere. Attached to it was the Schiaparelli EDM lander. The TGO carried a color and stereo camera, IR and UV spectrometers, a neutron detector, and a communications relay package to support future surface missions. The combined spacecraft had a mass of 4332 kg. TGO was built by Thales/Cannes (formerly GTC/Sud Aviation) and EDM by Thales/Torino (formerly Fiat). Proton-M No. 93560 put the stack into a suborbital trajectory. The Briz-M upper stage, S/N 99560, separated at 0941 UTC and fired for 6 minutes to enter a 185 x 185 km x 51.5 deg parking orbit at 0947 UTC. After completing one orbit, a second burn at 1110 UTC raised the orbit to 250 x 5800 km. At the next perigee, at 1324 UTC, the orbit was raised to 696 x 21086 km and the Briz-M additional propellant tank was jettisoned. On completing this orbit, the fourth burn began at 1948 UTC to propel the vehicle to escape velocity. ExoMars TGO/EDM separated from the Briz-M at 2013 UTC in a hyperbolic Earth escape orbit (C3 = 13.78 km**2/s**2). The ExoMars spacecraft entered the Martian gravitational Hill sphere at 0110 UTC Oct 16, and at 1442 UTC Oct 16 split into the separate TGO (Trace Gas Orbiter) and EDM (Entry-Descent-Landing Demonstrator Module) vehicles. TGO made an insertion burn on Oct 19 from 1304 to 1523 UTC, entering a 4-day-period, 346 x 95228 km x 9.7 orbit deg around Mars.

ExoMars-2016 mass breakdown as follows:

  Schiaparelli
    EDM Surface Platform        280 kg
    SP hydrazine                 46 kg
    Front Shield                200 kg?
    Back Cover                   54 kg?
    Parachute system             20 kg?
  -------------------------------------
  EDM total                     600 kg
  TGO spacecraft               1365 kg  (including 41 kg separation assembly)
  TGO propellant               2367 kg
  -------------------------------------
  ExoMars-2016 launch total    4332 kg

The Schiaparelli EDM was the EDL Demonstrator Module, where EDL was "Entry, Descent and Landing". EDM consisted of an aeroshell containing the EDM Surface Platform (ESP, a triply-nested three-letter-acronym proving that ESA can compete with NASA in the TLA race). EDM attempted o land on the surface as a technology demonstration, and carried a small meteorology payload. The EDM separated from TGO three days before Mars arrival and entered the Martian atmosphere on a hyperbolic trajectory towards a landing site at 6.1W 1.9S in Meridiani Planum. After entry a parachute slowed the vehicle, the back cover and forward shield were jettisoned, and thrusters slowed the ESP further. The ESP underside consisted of a crushable structure to absorb impact with the surface. In the event, Schiaparelli approached on a 62 x -13982 km x 8.2 deg hyperbola and entered the Martian atmosphere at 1442 UTC at a speed of 5.86 km/s and an angle of -11.9 degrees. During descent, data was relayed to Mars orbiting spacecraft for later retransmission as well as sent on a live link picked up by the GMRT radio telescope near Pune, India.Schiaparelli survived the entry and deployed its parachute 4 minutes later at an altitude of 11 km. The heatshield was jettisoned 30 seconds later, and at 1447 UTC the parachute and attached backshell were separated at an altitude of 1.3 km over the Meridiani Planum landing site at 6.11W 2.07S. It appeared that the parachute / backshell separated 15 seconds earlier than expected. The thrusters fired for only 3 seconds, and the lander transitioned to landing mode while still well above the surface. A free fall of 19 seconds ensued, followed by a high speed (hundreds of km/hr) impact. At this point communications from the lander ceased. MRO imaged the EDM lander's impact scar at 6.11W 2.07S. The parachute was 0.16 km E 0.91km S of the lander.