NASA Administrator T. Keith Glennan directed that an accelerated joint planning effort be made by persons at NASA Headquarters who were most familiar with the Saturn, Apollo, manned orbital laboratory, and unmanned lunar and planetary programs. They were to determine whether the Saturn and Saturn-use programs were effectively integrated and whether sufficient design study and program development work had been done to support decisions on projected Saturn configurations. Additional Details: here....

In the period 1966 to 1968 there were five simultaneous Soviet manned space projects (Soyuz 7K-OK orbital; Soyuz 7K-L1 circumlunar; Soyuz VI military; L3 manned lunar landing; Almaz space station). Cosmonaut assignments were in constant flux, resulting in many claims in later years that 'I was being trained for the first moon flight'. Additional Details: here....

NASA was canceling Apollo missions 15 and 19 because of congressional cuts in FY 1971 NASA appropriations, Administrator Thomas O. Paine announced in a Washington news conference. Remaining missions would be designated Apollo 14 through 17. The Apollo budget would be reduced by $42.1 million, to $914.4 million - within total NASA $3.27 billion.

Attempted lunar soil return mission; crashed while attempting to soft land at Latitude 3.57 N, Longitude 50.50 E - Mare Fecunditatis. Luna 18 used a new method of navigation in lunar orbit and for landing. The spacecraft's designer, Babakhin, had died at age 56 only the month before. Luna 18 successfully reached earth parking orbit before being put on a translunar trajectory. On September 7, 1971, it entered lunar orbit. The spacecraft completed 85 communications sessions and 54 lunar orbits before it was sent towards the lunar surface by use of braking rockets. It impacted the Moon on September 11, 1971, in a rugged mountainous terrain. Signals ceased at the moment of impact. Parameters are for lunar orbit.

TO BE ALLOWED TO TRY THREE TIMES RUNNING IS BUT FAIR!!

The 3d attempt to dock the freighter Progress-M24 to Mir succeeded. This time they used the system TORU instead of Kurs. Malenchenko safely guided and docked Progress-M24 to the forward axial docking port (P.Kh.O.-transition section). The docking took place on 2.09.94 at 1330 UTC. During the last phase of the approach Malenchenko was fully responsible and in an admirable way he performed his task. Molodets!! Voice communication between Mir and TsUP via Altair was loud and clear and so I was able to monitor the actions and observations of Malenchenko. Just before docking the voice communication stopped while Progress-M24 was on a distance of 5 Meters with an approach speed of 26 cm/sec. M. had to correct Progress-M24's course due to a slight deviation to left.

Radio traffic via VHF after the docking:

During the pass in orb. 48809 (1648 UTC) M. reported that the hatch had been opened and that they already more or less had started the unloading. The ship was in good order and all was clean. The crew had to unload the container Biokrist and install it in the right place as soon as possible. (Biokrist is complex of protein crystallisation experiments) During the next pass (orb. 48810, 1824 UTC) the main subject again was the cargo and the special attention for the container Biokrist).

Chris v.d. Berg, NL-9165/A-UK3202

The descent module of the ship Soyuz-TM23 with on board the crew of the 21st ME and the 'spacionaute' Claudie Andre-Deshays landed safely on 2.09.1996 at 07.41.40 UTC in a position 105 KM South West of Akmola in Kazakhstan. The condition of the 3 cosmonauts was excellent and they will fly to Chkalovo (near Starcity, Moscow) today.

0110 UTC: The hatch behind the departing cosmonauts was closed.

0417 UTC: Soyuz-TM23 separated from Mir to begin a short autonomous flight.

The aimed landing position was in a distance of 107 KM from Tselinograd in Kazakhstan with an estimated landing time of 07.41.03 UTC. (So they landed 37 sec. later in another position).

Progress-M32: This freighter is still flying autonomously. Redocking to the Mir complex is on schedule for 3.09.1996 at abt. 0755 UTC.

Chris v.d. Berg, NL-9165/A-UK320.

The spacecraft undocked on September 2 at 04:20 GMT, and made a small seperation burn at 04:24:40 GMT. Deorbit was at 06:47:20 GMT. The three modules separated at 07:14:36 and the parachute deployed at 07:26 GMT. The landing was at 07:41:40 GMT, 100 km SW of Akmola in Kazakstan with Yuri Onufrienko, Yuriy Usachyov and Claudie Andre-Deshays aboard. This concluded the French 'Cassiopee' mission.

Geosynchronous. Stationed over 10.2W Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 10 deg W in 1997-1998; deg E in 1998-1999 As of 5 September 2001 located at 0.68 deg E drifting at 0.036 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 11 located at 57.39E drifting at 0.007W degrees per day.

Docked with ISS at the Poisk port at 07:39 GMT on 4 September. On Mar 2 at 0102 UTC Volkov, Kornienko and Kelly, aboard Soyuz TMA-18M, undocked from the Poisk module, concluding Expedition 46. Tim Kopra then became commander of Expedition 47, with flight engineers Yuriy Malenchenko and Tim Peake. Soyuz TMA-18M made the deorbit burn at 0332 UTC and landed in Kazakhstan at 0426 UTC. Soyuz commander Volkov had spent six months in space, while Kornienko and Kelly completed 340d 8h 21min in space, or about 0.93 years.

MUOS (Multiple User Objective System), US Navy UHF-band communications satellite,was launched into a geotransfer orbit. The Centaur upper stage made three burns, to 167 km x 630 km, 194 km x 34,447 km, and 3,802 km x 35,786 km orbits, before releasing the satellite. The satellite used its BT-4 liquid engine to raise its orbit to geosynchronous altitue.