After the final successful L series flight of August 9, with pressure feed, Goddard turned again to the problem of fuel pumps, which he believed were imperative if very high altitudes were to be attained. This ultimately resulted in the P Series of Tests, which ran from October 17, 1938-October 10, 1941. The work began in the fall of 1938, when he made a thorough study, through more than twenty proving-stand tests, of five models of small, high-speed centrifugal pumps, which had several radically new features.

The Air Force no longer seriously entertained the prospect of a separate military man in space program. Instead the ballistic missile division became deeply involved in support activity for the civilian space agency, especially developing and supplying hardware for the Mercury program. As of this date, Air Force Ballistic Missile Division participation included the following: providing 16 Atlas D boosters to accept Mercury capsules and adapters, to be provided by the space agency, a modified guidance structure, an installed abort system to insure pilot safety, and telemetry. Air Force Ballistic Missile Division also furnished launch facilities at the Atlantic Missile Range Complex 14, and one-half of Hangar J and the necessary modifications thereto as requested and made necessary by booster requirements. Such work included installation of capsule umbilical and checkout cabling, telemetry, communications, and data transfer equipment required by the payload. The missile division also provided the guidance site and use of the range Atlas guidance computer (Mod III) for powered trajectory guidance and the special computations requested by the space agency. Air Force Ballistic Missile Division and several Air Force contractors provided, as of this date, 401 military and civilian personnel to the program. Much of the cost of this support activity was reimbursed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, but some was not. Air Force personnel costs, military and civilian; office space and equipment; and normal base support functions were provided at Air Force expense. Cost of a 14 booster "program (the additional two boosters were ordered too late to be included in this summary) was as follows:(Millions of Dollars)

The group was selected to provide crew members for planned Apollo missions (then planned as 4 Saturn I missions in 1965, 2-4 Saturn IB missions in 1966, 6 Saturn V missions from 1967).. Qualifications: Qualified jet pilot with minimum 1,000 flight-hours, bachleor's degree in engineering or physical or biological sciences, under 35 years old, under 183 cm height, excellent health. US citizen.. There were 271 applications, 200 from civilians (including two women) and 71 from military pilots (including two African-Americans). President Kennedy pushed for NASA to appoint a black astronaut, but neither of the applicants met the test pilot requirements. Bobby Kennedy arranged for one of these, USAF Captain Edward Dwight, to be enrolled in the USAF Test Pilot school. He graduated, and then had the necessary qualifications. He was 28 years old, an engineering school graduate, and a B-57 bomber command pilot with 2,000 hours flying time. However NASA did not find him as well qualified as other candidates, and he was not among the 32 chosen for final physical and mental tests.

From these 32, the final 14 were selected. Of them, four would die (two in a T-38 crash, one in a car crash, and one in the Apollo 204 ground fire) before flying in space. All of the ten remaining would fly in the Apollo program.

Space Systems Division, acting.as program manager for the Defense Department, launched two Vela nuclear radiation detection satellites from Cape Canaveral aboard the first Atlas D/Agena D (SLV-3/SS-01A) launch vehicle (197D). The Vela satellites were developed and produced by the TRW Systems and were the first pair in a series of satellites designed to provide information on nuclear detonations in the atmosphere or in outer space to a distance of 100 million miles. The 297-pound satellites were placed in near-circular orbits approximately 70,000 miles above the Earth's surface. Space craft engaged in investigation of spaceflight techniques and technology (US Cat A).

NASA Hq. informed MSC that NASA Deputy Administrator Robert C. Seamans, Jr., had approved the project approval document authorizing four additional CSMs beyond No. 115A. MSC was requested to proceed with all necessary procurement actions required to maintain production capability in support of projected schedules for these items.

There have been many improvements and additional qualification tests conducted since the Soyuz 1 crash, notably to the parachute system. MAP, TsAGI, LII, and the VVS want the L1 to have a reserve parachute as well, but Mishin rejects the recommendation -- it would cost 200 kg extra mass, and there are absolutely no reserves in the L1.

Two NASA investigation boards had reported that loss of attitude control caused the May 6 accident that destroyed lunar landing research vehicle No. 1, NASA announced. Helium in propellant tanks had been depleted earlier than normal, dropping pressure needed to force hydrogen peroxide propellant to the attitude-control lift rockets and thrusters. Additional Details: here....

The landing commission meets at the command post at 08:00. Soyuz 7 is to land on orbit 97, beginning a 95 m/s retrofire impulse at 11:44:11. The main parachute is to deploy at 12:12:34. All is reported normal aboard the spacecraft, except that the Soyuz 7 warning light panel shows 'ASP' - automatic landing sequence. Despite this, Soyuz 7 landed successfully at 09:26 GMT. Additional Details: here....

Space Test Program Flight 71-2 (STP 71-2), a Thorad/Agena launch vehicle, inserted four payloads into orbit from Vandenberg. Space Test Program; technology experiments. Space craft engaged in investigation of spaceflight techniques and technology (US Cat A).

Replaced Molniya 3-12. 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 and within the framework of international cooperation.

Unmanned resupply vessel to Mir. First attempted to dock with Mir on 19 October 1991. The docking was automatically aborted at a distance of 150 m from the station. Successfully docked with the forward port of Mir on on 21 Oct 1991 03:40:50 GMT. Unloading began next day. Undocked on 20 Jan 1992 07:13:44 GMT. Destroyed in reentry on 20 Jan 1992 12:03:30 GMT. Total free-flight time 4.35 days. Total docked time 91.15 days.

The astronauts installed two 58 kg DDCU DC-to-DC converter units atop the International Space Station's Z1 Truss. The DDCUs, will convert electricity generated by the solar arrays to be attached during the next shuttle mission. The spacewalkers also completed power cable connections on both the Z1 truss and newly installed docking port, PMA-3. They connected and reconfigured cables to route power from Pressurised Mating Adapter-2 to PMA-3 for the arrival of Endeavour and the STS-97 crew next month. They also attached a second tool storage box on the Z1 truss, providing a place to hold the tools and spacewalking aids for future assembly flights. McArthur stocked the boxes with tools and hardware that had been attached to the Unity module. STS-96 Astronauts Tammy Jernigan and Dan Barry had left the tools on the outside of Unity during a May 1999 spacewalk.

Expedition Three crewmembers are preparing to board their Soyuz return vehicle at the International Space Station (ISS) early Friday to move it from the Earth-facing port of the Zarya module for the first-ever linkup to the new Pirs Docking Compartment. The short procedure will begin with undocking of the Soyuz at 5:48 a.m. CDT, and will conclude with the redocking at 6:06 a.m. CDT. Additional Details: here....

Flight Time: 2.2 hours Pilot: Binnie Copilot: Siebold. Objectives: Boost phase pilot training. Formation flying and air-to-air photography with the Proteus aircraft. Results: Adequate visibility and satisfactory flying qualities for formation flying. A photo from this flight later appeared on the cover of Aviation Week (21Apr03 issue).

Objectives: Fourth glide flight of SpaceShipOne. Primary purpose was to examine the effects of horizontal tail modifications at both forward and mid-range CG locations (obtained by dumping water from an aft ballast tank between test points). The tail modifications included a fixed strake bonded to the tail boom in front of the stabilator and a span-wise flow fence mounted on the leading edge of each stab at mid-span. Additional Details: here....

Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo ship, the SS Alan Poindexter, was launched on mission OA-5. The launch was the first flight of the Antares 230 rocket, featuring a first stage with two Energomash RD-181 engines replacing the Kuznetsov/Aerojet AJ-26 engines used on earlier Antares missions (which were implicated in the Oct 2014 Antares 130 failure), and a second stage with the Castor 30XL solid motor. The Castor 30XL was on the previous Antares launch but didn't get a chance to fire because of the first stage failure, so this was its first real test. In the event the rocket performed above specification and the mission reached a higher-than-planned 209 x 351 km orbit. OA-5 reached the ISS on Oct 23; it was grappled by the SSRMS at 1128 UTC and berthed to the nadir port of the Unity module at 1453 UTC. Cygnus OA-5 carried 2345 kg of pressurized cargo, and the external Nanoracks deployer with four Spire Global Lemur-2 cubesats.Cygnus cargo vehicle SS Alan Poindexter (OA-5) was unberthed from the Unity module at about 1125 UTC Nov 21 and released into space at 1322 UTC. It raised its orbit on Nov 25 to 495 x 504 km and released two pairs of Spire Global cubesats in the Lemur-2 series. Cygnus was deorbited on Nov 27, reentering over the S Pacific at 2336 UTC.