An AVCO-Convair contractor team submitted to the Air Force an unsolicited proposal for development of a manned satellite at the earliest possible date. The proposed system was built around an Atlas booster, no second stage, mounting a light double walled capsule which would rely on a steel mesh drag chute for deceleration and recovery. The proposal was analyzed by Air Force space specialists who concluded that the plan was feasible but offered little margin for error. Furthermore, weight estimates were optimistic, its orbital endurance and altitude were low and it possessed no growth potential although use of Atlas as a booster appeared to have merit. Air Force Ballistic Missile Division felt adoption of the proposal would only gain three or four months over the much more versatile Thor-fluorine combination vehicle which would also be free from the major limitations inherent in the AVCO-Convair proposal. (Memo, Col J. D. Lowe, AFBMD. to Col H. Evans, AFBMD, 16 May 1958, no subject.)

In a NASA position paper, stimulated by Secretary of Defense McNamara's testimony on the fiscal year 1964 budget and an article in Missiles and Rockets interpreting his statements, Robert C. Seamans, Jr., NASA Associate Administrator, stressed NASA's primary management responsibility in the Gemini program. McNamara's remarks had been interpreted as presaging an Air Force take-over of Project Gemini. Seamans recognized the vital role of the Department of Defense in Gemini management and operations but insisted that NASA had the final and overall responsibility for program success.

Air Force Space Systems Division (SSD) accepted the first Agena D (AD-71) for the Gemini program. The Agena D was a production-line vehicle procured from Lockheed by SSD for NASA through routine procedures. Following minor retrofit operations, the vehicle, now designated Gemini Agena target vehicle 5001, entered the manufacturing final assembly area at the Lockheed plant on May 14. There began the conversion of the Agena D into a target vehicle for Gemini rendezvous missions. Major modifications were installation of a target docking adapter (supplied by McDonnell), an auxiliary equipment rack, external status displays, a secondary propulsion system, and an L-band tracking radar.

Kamanin notes that the 27 April decree has selected only nine new cosmonauts from 300 pilot and 100 engineer candidates. He believes at least 30 should have been selected. Currently there are only 18 active cosmonauts, but Kamanin feels he needs at least 100, just to cover all the public relations appearance demands made on them.

A compact shower assembly for use on Skylab Earth-orbital missions was designed and built at MSFC. The shower remained stored on the floor when not in use. Astronauts would step inside a ring on the floor and raise a fireproof beta cloth curtain on a hoop and attach it to the ceiling. A flexible hose with push-button shower nozzle could spray 2.8 liters of water from the personal hygiene tank during each bath. Used water would be vacuumed from the shower enclosure into a disposable bag and deposited in the waste tank.

The Titan core vehicle operated correctly, but a software error in the Centaur stage resulted in all three planned burns being made at the wrong times, during the first orbit instead of over a six hour period. The three burns planned to place Milstar successively in a 170 x 190 km parking orbit, a geostationary transfer orbit, and finally geosynchronous orbit. Instead, at 19:00 GMT, several hours before the scheduled third burn, Milstar separated into a useless 740 km x 5000 km orbit. Milstar-2 F1 was the first upgraded Milstar with an extra Medium Data Rate payload with a higher throughput. The payload included EHF (44 GHz), SHF (20 GHz) and UHF communications transponders and satellite-to-satellite crosslinks, with narrow beams to avoid jamming.

A replacement Soyuz spacecraft successfully docked to the International Space Station early Monday, providing the station crew with a new "lifeboat" should an unexpected return to Earth become necessary. The docking occurred at 2:58 a.m. as the station orbited over south-central Russia near the Mongolian border. Additional Details: here....

The ISS EO-8 crew of Kaleri and Foale, together with the ESA Delta mission astronaut Kuipers, undocked Soyuz TMA-3 from the International Space Station at 20:52 GMT on 29 April. There was minor concern due to a helium leak in the Soyuz engine pressurisation system. The Soyuz capsule made a soft landing at 00:11 GMT on 30 April near the city of Arkalyk. The recovery forces consisted of 160 people, eight helicopters, two aircraft and two all-terrain vehicles.The EO-9 crew of Fincke and Padalka remained aboard the ISS on a six-month caretaking mission.

Upon wake-up, FE-1 Kononenko terminated his first MBI-12 SONOKARD experiment session, started last night, by taking the recording device from his SONOKARD sports shirt pocket and later copying the measurements to the RSE-MED laptop for subsequent downlink to the ground. Additional Details: here....