The A-4b was a winged V-2. This resurrected work on the A-9, abandoned in 1943 to concentrate on V-2 production. The A9 was to be the second stage of an ICBM designed to reach North America. By this time in the war the intent was to extend the range of the V-2 once Allied forces pushed the German lines so far back that Britain could no longer be targeted.

Launched 12:18 local time. Reached 104.8 km. Carried cosmic and soalr radiaiton, winds, photography experiments for Applied Physics Lab, John Hopkins University. The John Hopkins camera took motion pictures of the earth at over 100 km altitude (pictures covered 100,000 square km.)

First attempted launch of R-16 ICBM results in explosion on pad, killing over 100 military, engineers, and technicians, including Strategic Rocket Forces Marshal Nedelin. The first R-16 prototype was fuelled and on the pad, awaiting launch. An electrical problem developed, leading to a hold. Marshal Nedelin, commander of the Strategic Rocket Forces, ordered the engineers and technicians to fix the problem without the long delay of defuelling and refurbishing the missile. He personally had a deck chair brought out to the pad so he could watch the work first-hand. At 18:45 local time a spurious radio signal ordered the second stage of the rocket to fire while workers swarmed around the missile in its gantry. The missile exploded, killing a good part of the Soviet Union's rocket engineering and management talent. Among the dead were Nedelin, Konoptev, Grishin, Nosov, Kontsevsky, and Lev Berlin. 74 people were killed immediately, and 48 died in the ensuing weeks from burns or contact with the toxic and corrosive propellants. The total included 38 civilian engineers and 84 officers and enlisted rocket technicians. Yangel, the rocket's designer, was spared only because he had slipped into a bunker for a cigarette when the explosion occurred.

Faced by opposition of mode selection by Jerome Wiesner, Kennedy's science adviser, NASA let contracts to McDonnell and STL for direct two-man flight modes. Both concluded that it was feasible but would require LH2/LOX stages for descent and ascent from lunar surface, which NASA/STG adamantly opposed. This was also the last stab - for the time being - at 'lunar Gemini'.

The Office of Systems under NASA's Office of Manned Space Flight completed a manned lunar landing mode comparison embodying the most recent studies by contractors and NASA Centers. The report was the outgrowth of the decision announced by NASA on July 11 to continue studies on lunar landing modes while basing planning and procurement primarily on the lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR) technique. Additional Details: here....

Mars probe intended to photograph Mars on a flyby trajectory. The spacecraft broke into many pieces, some of which apparently remained in Earth orbit for a few days. This occurred during the Cuban missile crisis and was picked up by U.S. military radar installations, who originally feared it might by the start of a Soviet nuclear attack.

The NASA-Industry Apollo Executives Group, composed of top managers in OMSF and executives of the major Apollo contractors, met for the first time. The group met with George E. Mueller, NASA Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, for status briefings and problem discussions. In this manner, NASA sought to make executives personally aware of major problems in the program.

On 24 October 1963 an R-9 was being prepared for launch in a silo at LC-70. Unknown to the 11 man launch crew, an oxygen leak in the fuelling system had raised the oxygen partial pressure in the silo from the 21% maximum allowed to 32%. Whie the crew was descending in a lift to the 8th level of the silo, a spark from an electrical panel created a fire in the explosive atmosphere, killing seven and destroying the silo. This happened on the same day as the Nedelin disaster three years earlier, and became the cosmodrome's 'Black Day'. Forever after no launches were attempted from Baikonur on October 24.

Carried military experiments to test communications and navigation equipment needed for command and control of Soviet nuclear forces (later used on the Uragan navigation satellites). Also conducted operational monitoring of cosmic rays, radiation from nuclear tests, and natural and artifically-produced radiation belts.

MSC established a committee to investigate several nearly catastrophic malfunctions in the steam generation system at the White Sands Test Facility. The system was used to pump down altitude cells in LM propulsion system development. Committee members were Joseph G. Thibodaux, chairman; Hugh D. White, secretary; Harry Byington, Henry O. Pohl, Robert W. Polifka, and Allen H. Watkins, all of MSC.

Glushko has a private conversation with Isayev at the N1 MIK during the Soyuz 3 launch preparations. Glushko revealed to Isayev that in 1961 he had offered Korolev a compromise - if Korolev would use the same 'packet' scheme for the N1 that he had used on the R-7, so that the individual engine modules could be individually tested on the ground before flight, Glushko would give up his insistence on the use of storable propellants. However, after checking with Mishin, Korolev would not compromise. Additional Details: here....

Kamanin visits the Korolev and Gagarin cottages. He finds them in bad condition, in need of repair. They should be restored as they were in 1961 and be made into museums. At 16:00 the rocket is rolled out to Area 31. 500 are present at the State Commission meeting.

As an early air mobile flight demonstration of the feasibility of launching a ballistic missile from a wide-bodied aircraft, a Minuteman I missile was dropped from an Air Force C-5A over water. Ignited at 8,000 feet, the Minuteman rose to 20,000 feet before expending its propellant and falling into the ocean 20 miles from Vandenberg AFB. SAMSO's Deputy for Minuteman at Norton AFB, California, completed the necessary work for the air mobile demonstration in just over two months. The data gathered from this first live demonstration of the air mobile concept will be used in SAMSO's Advanced ICBM Technology (M-X) program that will determine technology and basing concept for the next generation of U.S. land-based strategic missiles.

Environmental research. The experiments carried were a limb infrared monitoring of the stratosphere (LIMS), stratospheric and mesopheric sounder (SAMS), coastal-zone color scanner (CZCS), stratospheric aerosol measurement (SAM II), earth radiation budget (ERB), scanning multichannel microwave radiometer (SMMR), solar backscatter UV and total ozone mapping spectrometer (SBUV/TOMS), and temperature-humidity infrared radiometer (THIR). These sensors were capable of observing several parameters at and below the mesospheric levels. After 11 years in orbit, three experiments, SAM II, SBUV/TOMS, and ERB, were still functioning successfully.

Conduct of complex investigations on the interaction between the magnetosphere and ionosphere of the earth. Launched under the Intercosmos programme by the USSR in cooperation with the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, the German Democratic Republic, the H ungarian People's Republic, the Polish People's Republic and the Socialist Republic of Romania. On 14 Nov 1978, Magion, a small Czechoslovak scientific satellite, separated from object 1296.

Ionospheric, magnetospheric studies. The Czechoslovak satellite MAGION was launched into orbit by the Soviet spacecraft Intercosmos 18. It forms a part of the scientific programme of Intercosmos 18, launched from USSR territory on 24 Oct 1978. MAGION was separated into an autonomous orbit on 14 Nov 1978. General function: Reasearch of the magnetosphere and ionosphere of the earth (magnetosphere-ionosphere satellite).

Death of Leonid Georiyevich Ivanov at Akhtubinsk, Russia. Crash of MiG-27 aircraft during test flight. Russian pilot cosmonaut, 1978-1980. Graduated from Higher Air Force School, Katchinsk, 1971 Major and pilot, Soviet Air Force. Cosmonaut training 23 August 1976 - 30 January 1979.

The primary mission of Deep Space 1 probe was to test new technology for future interplanetary spacecraft, the main experiment being an ion propulsion engine using xenon propellant. It had an initial mass of 486.3 kg, including 81.5 kg of Xenon and 31.1 kg of hydrazine propellants. The Delta 7326 used three Alliant GEM-40 solid strap-on motors, the standard Delta II core vehicle, and a Thiokol Star 37FM solid motor as the third stage. The Delta second stage entered a 185 km parking orbit, then fired again to enter a 174 km x 2744 km x 28.5 degree orbit. The Star 37FM then separated and accelerated to place Deep Space 1 to escape velocity. Deep Space 1 successfully started its ion engine on November 24 after an initial attempt failed after four minutes on November 10. From its initial solar orbit of 0.99 AU x 1.32 AU x 0.4 degree, Deep Space 1 was to fly past the 3 km diameter asteroid 1992 KD at its perihelion of 1.33 AU. The spacecraft then flew past the nucleus of comet 19P/Borrelly at a distance of 2200 km at 2230 GMT on Sep 22 2001. It survived the encounter in good shape, sending back photos of the comet. At the encounter DS1 was in a 1.3 x 1.5 AU x 0 deg (ecliptic) solar orbit; Borrelly's orbit was 1.3 x 5.9 AU.

Following separation of the third stage and the primary Deep Space 1 payload, the Delta second stage manoeuvred from its 185 km parking orbit to a 174 km x 2744 km x 28.5 degree orbit. It then released the SEDSAT micro-satellite, built by the Huntsville, Alabama chapter of SEDS (the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space). SEDSAT has two amateur radio transponders and an earth imaging camera.

Discovery glided to a textbook landing under sunny skies at Edwards Air Force Base in California on Tuesday, completing a successful mission to the International Space Station. The crew spent more than two extra days in space because of unfavorable weather at Kennedy Space Center in Florida and at Edwards. Additional Details: here....

At 1814 GMT on October 23 Padalka, Fincke and guest cosmonaut Shargin (delivered for a one week mission aboard Soyuz TMA-5), entered Soyuz TMA-4 and closed the hatches leaving Chiao and Sharipov as the EO-10 station crew. Soyuz TMA-4 undocked at 21:08 GMT and made a small separation burn at 21:11 GMT. At 23:42 GMT the deorbit burn lowered the orbit from 353 x 366 km to -23 x 355 km. The descent module separated at 00:08 GMT on October 24, with a landing at 50.47 deg N / 67.12 deg E near Arkalyk at 00:36 GMT.

China's first unmanned lunar/planetary probe. The initial orbit of 221 x 50,602 km x 31.0 deg was raised to a translunar trajectory by 31 October in a serious of spacecraft engine burns. The spacecraft entered a 210 km x 8600 km lunar orbit at 03:37 GMT on 5 November.