Jet Propulsion Centers established at Princeton University and the California Institute of Technology by the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Foundation to provide research facilities and graduate training for qualified young scientists and engineers in rocketry and astronautics. Robert H. Goddard Chairs were established at each center.

Canadian physicist mission specialist astronaut 1983-2008. Selected Aug 1996; he had been Payload Specialist on STS-52 Mission LAGEOS-2 (responsible for the Space Visions System). 2 spaceflights, 21.7 days in space. Flew to orbit on STS-52 (1992), STS-115.

On the basis of the Hq USAF directive of 18 November, General Thomas S. Power, ARDC Commander, amended the Western Development Division's mission to include responsibility for ICBM initial operation capability (IOC) and for the development of IRBM Number 1 on a priority second only to that of the ICBM program.

Associate Administrator of NASA Robert C. Seamans, Jr., and his staff were briefed by Langley Research Center personnel on the rendezvous method as it related to the national space program. Clinton E. Brown presented an analysis made by himself and Ralph W. Stone, Jr., describing the general operational concept of lunar orbit rendezvous for the manned lunar landing. The advantages of this plan in contrast with the earth orbit rendezvous method, especially in reducing launch vehicle requirements, were illustrated. Others discussing the rendezvous were John C. Houbolt, John D. Bird, and Max C. Kurbjun.

NASA fired a four-stage solid-fuel Trailblazer rocket from Wallops Station, Virginia, in the first of a series of reentry tests. Two stages boosted the rocket to 167 miles; then the other two drove the nose cone down through the atmosphere at 14,000 miles per hour.

Second attempted flight of Soyuz 7K-OK (the spacecraft planned for the linkup with Ksomos 133). An analogue to Mercury Redstone's 'day we launched the tower' but with more disastorous consequences. The core stage ignited, but the strap-ons did not. A booster shutdown was commanded. The service towers were brought back around the booster, and ground crew began work to defuel the launch vehicle. At 27 minutes after the original launch attempt, the Soyuz launch escape system, having received the signal that liftoff had occurred, detected that the booster was not on course (either because a tower arm nudged the booster or because the earth's rotation as detected by the gyros had moved the spacecraft out of limits relative to its original inertial position). The launch escape system ignited, pulling the Soyuz away from the booster, igniting the third stage fuel tanks, leading to an explosion that severely damaged the pad and killed at least one person (the Soviet Rocket Forces major supervising the launch team) and injured many others.

Reentry into the Earth's atmosphere was not achieved because the retrorocket failed to ignite. The biosatellite was never recovered. Although the scientific objectives of the mission were not accomplished, the Biosatellite I experience provided technical confidence in the program because of excellent performance in most other areas.

Apollo Program Director Samuel C. Phillips wrote the manned space flight Centers of Apollo schedule decisions. In a September 20 meeting at MSC to review the Apollo test flight program, MSC had proposed a primary test flight plan including

1. the addition of a second unmanned LM flight,
2. addition of a third unmanned Saturn V flight, and
3. addition of a new' primary mission, a lunar orbital mission.

A Titan IIIC was launched from Cape Canaveral carrying DSCS II satellites F-ll and F-12. The vehicle placed the satellites in the proper orbit, and the satellites performed normally once there. They were expected to go into operation in mid-January 1979, at which point the DSCS II system would have a full, four-satellite constellation at its disposal for the first time in its history. Spacecraft engaged in practical applications and uses of space technology such as weather or communication (US Cat C). Positioned in geosynchronous orbit over the Pacific Ocean at 135 deg W in 1979-1983 over the Pacific Ocean 129 deg W in 1983-1989 As of 5 September 2001 located at 62.62 deg W drifting at 22.467 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 10 located at 96.59E drifting at 22.469W degrees per day.

Spacecraft engaged in practical applications and uses of space technology such as weather or communication (US Cat C). Positioned in geosynchronous orbit over the Pacific Ocean at 175 deg E in 1979-1981 over the Indian Ocean 66 deg E in 1981-1983 over the Indian Ocean 60 deg E in 1983-1987 over the Pacific Ocean177 deg E in 1988-1989 over the Indian Ocean 71 deg E in 1990-1992 As of 1 September 2001 located at 93.28 deg E drifting at 6.600 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 8 located at 143.60E drifting at 6.589W degrees per day.

Biological experiments. Continued investigation of the influence of space flight factors on living organisms. Carried monkeys Abrek and Bion. Capsule recovered 52 deg 42 min N, 62 deg 48 min E. The first U.S.S.R. orbital flight of a non-human primate was accomplished on the Cosmos 1514 mission. Two monkeys flew on the mission, together with several pregnant rats. More than 60 experiments were performed by investigators from Bulgaria, Hungary, the German Democratic Republic, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, France, the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. U.S. scientists conducted three experiments on the primates and another experiment on the rat subjects. Additional Details: here....

The draft project for this greatly expanded station was approved by NPO Energia Chief Semenov on 14 December 1987 and announced to the press as 'Mir-2' in January 1988. The station would be built in a 65 degree orbit and consist mainly of enormous 90 tonne modules. But the first launch, as always, was the DOS 8. Assembly of the station was expected to begin in 1993.

Endeavour's crew awoke to the sounds of James Brown's "I Got You (I Feel Good)," today, in honor of the good feelings evoked by this successful first International Space Station Assembly mission. That wake-up call from Mission Control at 11:36 a.m. today, marks the start of the final full-day of operations for the six-member crew of STS-88. Additional Details: here....

With five times more power than was available just two weeks ago, the Expedition One crew spent the week reconfiguring systems on the International Space Station (ISS) to route electricity being generated from the newly installed U.S. solar arrays on the orbiting complex to the Station's modules. Additional Details: here....

Technology. In 2003 the satellite released two tiny subsatellites in an experiment to test an onboard tracking imager for inspector satellites. The RITE (Remote Inspection Technology Experiment) targets are disks about 0.1m in diameter. They were released from Micro-LabSat on 2003 Mar 14 at 0140 UTC and 2003 May 14 at 0150 UTC

FedSat contained high-tech communication, space science, navigation and computing equipment and was intended to help bring broadband Internet services to remote parts of Australia. Data from its three-year mission was to be shared between Japan and Australia.

The Japanese Mars probe, Nozomi, flew past the planet at a height of 1000 km. Attempts to operate the spacecraft's main propulsion system failed, and small thrusters were used to increase the flyby distance by about 100 km to ensure a clean miss. The mission was abandoned, and Nozomi entered a new orbit around the Sun.

Classifed NRO mission of uncertain objectives, possibly military observation with a mixed payload. Later it was revealed the on-board propulsion system had completely failed, putting the satellite in a rapidly-decaying orbit. The Pentagon said that the hydrazine propellant aboard consituted a risk and announced they would shoot the satellite down. The real objective may have been to demonstrate US antisatellite capability after a Chinese test in 2007. In any case, on 21 February 2008 the satellite was down to a 242 km x 257 km orbit. At 03:26 GMT an SM-3 missile was fired from the Aegis cruiser USS Lake Erie stationed west of Hawaii to intercept the satellite. The hit-to-kill warhead successfully rammed the satellite, breaking it up into 153 catalogued items of debris with perigees of 170-250 km and apogees of up to 2700 km.

Follow-on to Canadian Radarsat-1 launched in 1995. Designed to provide C-band synthetic aperture radar mapping with resolution of 3 m to Canadian government users. Compared to the earlier model had greater resolution, vastly increased on-board data storage capacity, and capability to scan left or right of ground track. Planned lifetime of seven years.

Wide Field Infrared Explorer astronomy satellite, designed to conduct an all-sky survey at infrared frequencies of 3.4, 4.6, 12 and 22 microns, detecting objects 100 times fainter than the earlier IRAS and Akari satellites. Primary instrument is a 40 cm telescope cooled to 12 K by a cryostat filled with solid hydrogen. The survey was expected to detect tens of thousands of new asteroids, brown dwarf stars, and planets orbiting nearby stars.

Eighth in Kavoshgar series of biology missions; Capsule D recovery test. Launched from the Imam Khomeini Space Center in Semnan province on a 120 km suborbital flight, carrying a 3 kg, 3 year old rhesus monkey named Fargam. This was the fourth Iranian monkey in space, and the second to return successfully following the Kavoshgar Pisgham ('Pioneer Probe') mission in January 2013. The use of a liquid fuel missile provided gentler acceleration than the small solid propellant sounding rockets used for earlier experiments. The Kavoshgar Pazhuhesh ('Research Probe') flight was the first 'Class D' mission of the Kavoshgar series. The payload was developed by the Institute of Astronautical Systems, which I believe is part of the Aerospace Research Institute in Tehran.