Mr. William A. Holaday, Special Assistant for Guided Missiles, OSD, was named Director of Guided Missiles by the newly appointed (9 October) Secretary of Defense, Neil H. McElroy. As Director of Guided Missiles, Mr. Holaday was to direct all Defense Department activities related to guided missile research, development, engineering, production, and procurement.

At the request of John W. McCormack, Chairman of House Committee on Aeronautics and Space Exploration, Major General B. A Schriever prepared a paper, "Space Development Capabilities 1958-1968" This eloquently projected space advances and goals over the next decade. Schriever pointed out that above developments in any other technical area ". improvements in rocket thrust--our lifting capability -will be a direct determinant of our overall). rate of progress, " To this date the rate of progress in space rested directly on the nation's missile program. Another area of primary concern was increasing the reliability of all elements of a space system. with significant improvements in these two areas the nation could anticipate ever increasing payloads placed in orbit, manned orbital satellites and space stations , lunar flights and near planetary explorations. Recoverable chemical powered boosters, ion beam or thermo-nuclear plasma propulsion systems outer space would open an ent; rely new phase of space exploration. Thus in the months and years ahead it was possible to foresee many dramatic developments in propulsion systems, high thrust space vehicles and a vastly increased knowledge of the space environment. (Paper, "Space Development Capability, 1958-1968, " submitted 15 Nov 58, prep by Maj Gen B. A. Schriever, Cmdr, AFBIVID.)

OKB-52 began to collaborate with V P Glushko's OKB-456 in developing a high thrust storable propellant engine for the UR-500 Proton launch vehicle. Glushko had completed a storable liquid engine design of 150 tonnes for use in Korolev's N1. However Korolev refused to accept this design, due to his categorical refusal to use toxic propellants in his rockets and his belief that such propellants could never deliver the required specific impulse. Korolev insisted on development of an oxygen-kerosene engine; Glushko categorically refused to do so. As a result, the two leading Soviet rocket designers irrevocably split. Korolev had to turn for development of his N1 engines to the aviation engine design OKB of N D Kuznetsov.

In a letter to NASA Associate Administrator Robert C. Seamans, Jr., John C. Houbolt of Langley Research Center presented the lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR) plan and outlined certain deficiencies in the national booster and manned rendezvous programs. This letter protested exclusion of the LOR plan from serious consideration by committees responsible for the definition of the national program for lunar exploration.

Together, Transits 4A and 4B allowed the determination of harmonics in the Earth's gravity field that had not yet been evaluated, and they also allowed firm navigational ties to be established from continent to continent as well as to isolated islands. As a result, it was discovered that the position of Hawaii was incorrect by 1 km. Carried SNAP 3 nuclear power source.

The Aerojet-General Corporation reported completion of successful firings of the prototype service propulsion engine. The restartable engine, with an ablative thrust chamber, reached thrusts up to 21,500 pounds. (Normal thrust rating for the service propulsion engine is 20,500.)

NASA and contractor studies showed that, in the event of an engine hard-over failure during maximum q, a manual abort was impractical for the Saturn I and IB, and must be carried out by automatic devices. Studies were continuing to determine whether, in a similar situation, a manual abort was possible from a Saturn V.

MSC instructed North American to:

• Submit a preliminary design of Block II CSM jettisonable covers to protect the radiator and CM heatshield thermal coatings from degradation by the boost environment.
• Furnish preliminary design of nonablative reaction control system (RCS) plume heat protection to prevent SM coating degradation on Block II CSMs.
• Determine the effect on the overall SM and LEM adapter thermal design of coating degradation to a level specified by MSC and to propose design changes or mission constraints for Block I and Block II CSMs.
• Determine the effect on the SM RCS thermal design of coating degradation to the level specified by MSC and to propose design changes or mission constraints for Block I and II CSMs.

Retrofire occurred 94 hours after liftoff. Reentry was automatically controlled. The spacecraft landed at 19:20 GMT less than 5 km from the planned landing point on November 15. The crew was picked up by helicopter and deposited 28 minutes later on the deck of the prime recovery ship, the aircraft carrier Wasp. The spacecraft was recovered 67 minutes after landing.

MSC informed MSFC that it would provide the following payload flight hardware for the AS-503/BP-30 flight test: boilerplate 30 (BP-30, already at MSFC); spacecraft-LM adapter 101 and launch escape system (SLA-101/LES) jettisonable mass simulation; and lunar module test article B (LTA-B, already at MSFC). MSC had no mission requirements but recommended that any restart test requirements for the Saturn S-IVB stage be carried out on this mission to simplify requirements for the first manned Saturn V mission.

Fatal accident, aircraft destroyed. After reaching peak altitude, entered spin at Mach 5. Entered dive at 30,000 m, began high frequency pitch oscillations, disintegrated when these reached 15 Gs.Maximum Speed - 5744 kph. Maximum Altitude - 81080 m. Air dropped in Delamar Dry Lake DZ.

Overnight a serious situation has developed. The hydrogen peroxide temperature aboard the L1 capsule has fallen from +20 deg C to -2 deg C. By the following morning it was down to -5 deg C. At such temperatures it will disassociate into oxygen and water, and the capsule's orientation thrusters will not be able to function for re-entry. A colour television camera was supposed to have been included in the cabin. If it was there it could be turned on and warm the capsule, but Mishin had insisted to the State Commission that it be deleted. The spacecraft could be oriented so that the sun would shine directly over the peroxide tank and warm it, but this might damage the 100K star sensor, which was mounted right next to it. A proposal is made that an attempt is made to orient the spacecraft using the ONA gyroscope package as flywheels, but Mishin and his deputies don't want to try anything. Mishin suddenly says that the next L1 will not be ready until February or later (before the date was January). This was seen by Kamanin as a typical 180-degree turn for him. Mishin looks bad - probably he's been drinking again. Kamanin sees no solution but a complete reorganisation of the space program, moving the manned program to the VVS.

AMSAT-OSCAR 7 was launched piggyback with ITOS-G (NOAA 4) and the Spanish INTASAT. The second phase 2 satellite (Phase II-B). Weight 28.6 kg. Octahedrally shaped 360 mm high and 424 mm in diameter. Circularly polarized canted turnstile VHF/UHF antenna system and HF dipole. Firsts: Satellite-to-satellite relay communication via AO-6; Early demonstrations of low-budget medical data relay and doppler location of ground transmitters for search-and-rescue operations were done using this satellite. AO-7 was fully operational for 6.5 years until a battery failed in mid 1981. However the satellite was still functional in day-side passes when its ever-degrading solar cells could function, and was still responding to amateurs as of August 2006. Additional Details: here....

Satellite Business Systems. Spacecraft engaged in practical applications and uses of space technology such as weather or communication (US Cat C). Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 100 deg W in 1981-1984; 99 deg W in 1984-1990 As of 4 September 2001 located at 115.72 deg E drifting at 1.627 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 10 located at 96.16E drifting at 1.647W degrees per day.

Stationed at 49 deg. E. Provision of telephone and telegraph radiocommunications and television broadcasting. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 35 deg E in 1985-1988; 69 deg E in 1988-1990; 85 deg E in 1990-1991; 49 deg E in 1991-1992 As of 5 September 2001 located at 174.18 deg W drifting at 0.357 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 10 located at 98.19E drifting at 0.512W degrees per day.

The weather was snow flurries with 20 m/s winds. Launch abort criteria were 15 m/s. The launch director decided to press ahead anyway. After 12 years of development everything went perfectly. Buran, with a mass of 79.4 tonnes, separated from the Block Ts core and entered a temporary orbit with a perigee of -11.2 km and apogee of 154.2 km. At apogee Burn executed a 66.6 m/s manoeuvre and entered a 251 km x 263 km orbit of the earth. In the payload bay was the 7150 kg module 37KB s/n 37071. 140 minutes into the flight retrofire was accomplished with a total delta-v of 175 m/s. 206 minutes after launch, accompanied by Igor Volk in a MiG-25 chase plane, Buran touched down at 260 km/hr in a 17 m/s crosswind at the Jubilee runway, with a 1620 m landing rollout. The completely automatic launch, orbital manoeuvre, deorbit, and precision landing of an airliner-sized spaceplane on its very first flight was an unprecedented accomplishment of which the Soviets were justifiably proud. It completely vindicated the years of exhaustive ground and flight test that had debugged the systems before they flew.

Unmanned test of Soviet shuttle. Landed November 15, 1988 06:25 GMT. Buran was first moved to the launch pad on 23 October 1988. The launch commission met on 26 October 1988 and set 29 October 06:23 Moscow time for the first flight of the first Buran orbiter (Flight 1K1). 51 seconds before the launch, when control of the countdown switched to automated systems, a software problem led the computer program to abort the lift-off. The problem was found to be due to late separation of a gyro update umbilical. The software problem was rectified and the next attempt was set for 15 November at 06:00 (03:00 GMT). Came the morning, the weather was snow flurries with 20 m/s winds. Launch abort criteria were 15 m/s. The launch director decided to press ahead anyway. After 12 years of development everything went perfectly. Buran, with a mass of 79.4 tonnes, separated from the Block Ts core and entered a temporary orbit with a perigee of -11.2 km and apogee of 154.2 km. At apogee Burn executed a 66.6 m/s manoeuvre and entered a 251 km x 263 km orbit of the earth. In the payload bay was the 7150 kg module 37KB s/n 37071. 140 minutes into the flight retrofire was accomplished with a total delta-v of 175 m/s. 206 minutes after launch, accompanied by Igor Volk in a MiG-25 chase plane, Buran touched down at 260 km/hr in a 17 m/s crosswind at the Jubilee runway, with a 1620 m landing rollout. The completely automatic launch, orbital manoeuvre, deorbit, and precision landing of an airliner-sized spaceplane on its very first flight was an unprecedented accomplishment of which the Soviets were justifiably proud. It completely vindicated the years of exhaustive ground and flight test that had debugged the systems before they flew.

Carried descent module with greetings to American people. Delivery of a humanitarian cargo (messages to the American people, promotional materials of Russian and foreign firms, etc.) to the United States of America in connection with the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America by Columbus.

Multi-functional Transportation Satellite intended to provide communications and air traffic control for the Japanese transportation ministry and a meteorological data for the Japanese Meteorological Agency. The spacecraft had a mass of 1223 kg dry and was a follow-on to the GMS (Himawari) weather satellite series.

ISS resupply and internal outfitting flight, docked at the Harmony module of the sation at 22:01 GMT on 16 November. The Leonardo module contained 6956 kg of cargo, mainly devoted to allowing a future full ISS crew of six: two crew quarters racks, a Galley rack, a Waste and Hygiene Compartment rack, two Water Recovery System racks, an experiment rack, a Combustion integration rack, and miscellaneous supplies in three Resupply Stowage Racks and six Resupply Stowage Platforms. On 17 November at 17:09 GMT the ISS robot arm moved the Leonardo module from the shuttle's payload bay to the Harmony module nadir port for unloading. The mission also rotated the ISS long-term NASA crew member, replacing Chamitoff with Magnus. Four spacewalks were conducted, primarily to repair a broken ISS Solar Array Rotary Joint.

The unloaded Leonardo module was returned to the shuttle bay on 26 November. The shuttle undocked from the ISS at 14:47 GMT on 28 November. The next day, at 20:33 GMT, it released a 7 kg PicoSat Solar Cell Testbed Experiment, a prototype for a later picosat mission to geostationary transfer orbit to study degradation of solar cells while passing through the earth's radiation belts.

Following two wave-offs for a Kennedy Space Center landing due to weather, Endeavour made its 89 m/s deorbit maneuver at 20:19 on 29 November, and landed at Runway 04L/22R at Edwards AFB at 21:25 GMT.

Cargo Manifest, Total = 17,370 kg:

• Bay 1-2: Orbiter Docking System = 1800 kg + EMUs 3005 and 3011 = 260 kg
• Bay 3 Port: APC/SPDU = 100 kg
• Bay 3 Starboard: APC/SSPL Picosat launcher = 50 kg + PSSC Picosats = 7 kg
• Bay 7 Starboard: ROEU 751 umbilical = 50 kg
• Bay 7-12: Leonardo (MPLM-1) = 12748 kg
• Bay 13: Lightweight MPESS Carrier (LMC)= 1495 kg
• Sill: RMS 201 = 410 kg + OBSS = 450 kg