Rose out of tower rapidly and tipped, passing over observation shelter; distance 204.5 ft; speed about 60 mph. This flight was followed by a series of static tests, to develop liquid 'curtain cooling' for inside of combustion-chamber wall, a regenerative system, and better stability in flight.

Manned Spacecraft Center directed Air Force Space Systems Division to authorize contractors to begin the work necessary to use the Titan II in the Mercury Mark II program. On December 27, Martin-Baltimore received a go-ahead on the launch vehicle from the Air Force. A letter contract for 15 Gemini launch vehicles and associated aerospace ground equipment followed on January 19, 1962.

Development time schedule for Dyna-Soar was reduced when DOD authorized the USAF to move directly from B-52 drop tests to unmanned and then manned orbital flights. This eliminated the previous interim stage of suborbital flights to be powered by the Titan II. This required renegotiation of the development contract held by the Martin Co. and negotiating of a new contract for a larger booster.

Air Force Space Systems Division established the Gemini Launch Vehicle Configuration Control Board to draw up and put into effect procedures for approving and disapproving specifications and engineering change proposals for the Gemini launch vehicle. It formally convened for the first time on March 5, 1963.

MSFC Director Wernher von Braun described to Apollo Spacecraft Program Manager Joseph F. Shea a possible extension of Apollo systems to permit more extensive exploration of the lunar surface. Huntsville's concept, called the Integrated Lunar Exploration System, involved a dual Saturn V mission (with rendezvous in lunar orbit) to deliver an integrated lunar taxi/shelter spacecraft to the Moon's surface. Additional Details: here....

The training for the Soyuz 4 and 5 flights was completed last night. Today the crews undergo medical tests and start preparation of their flight logs/flight plans. On the return flight to Moscow Shatalov, Beregovoi, Severin, Kamanin, and Mnatsakanian get into a heated argument. The cosmonauts attack Mnatsakanian's Igla automated docking system. It limits docking manoeuvres to periods when the spacecraft are flying over the Soviet Union due to the requirement for ground stations to receive live television. The Americans worked only on the Apollo spacecraft for the last two to three years, while the Soviets have divided their efforts on no less than five spacecraft types: the L1, L3, Soyuz, Soyuz VI, and Almaz. This is all Mishin's fault...

Ustinov called the DOS 'conspirators' to Kuibyshev Street. Mishin was sent away to Kslovodsk and Chelomei and Glushko were not invited. No one wanted to listen to any more of Glushko's diatribes about Kuznetsov's engines.

Ustinov supported presentation of the DOS concept to the Central Committee. Chelomei categorically opposed DOS and was trying to kill it through military channels. But the allure of an '18 month' station - one which would not only beat the American Skylab, but be in space in time for the 24th Party Congress - seemed too alluring. Mishin also rejected DOS, but deputies at both design bureaux supported the concept and were eager to proceed.

DOS was therefore created only when the moon project failed. Chelomei was forced to work on DOS, and it severely impacted Almaz schedules. The Salyut name was later applied to both the DOS and Almaz stations, creating the impression in the outside world that they were built by one designer.

Deorbited February 2, 1977.
Maneuver Summary:
211km X 250km orbit to 215km X 286km orbit. Delta V: 11 m/s
211km X 284km orbit to 276km X 344km orbit. Delta V: 35 m/s
277km X 342km orbit to 338km X 351km orbit. Delta V: 19 m/s
330km X 340km orbit to 337km X 350km orbit. Delta V: 4 m/s
337km X 349km orbit to 339km X 351km orbit. Delta V: 1 m/s
332km X 348km orbit to 348km X 355km orbit. Delta V: 6 m/s
347km X 354km orbit to 343km X 351km orbit. Delta V: 1 m/s
335km X 344km orbit to 335km X 360km orbit. Delta V: 4 m/s
335km X 360km orbit to 342km X 361km orbit. Delta V: 2 m/s
330km X 351km orbit to 344km X 353km orbit. Delta V: 4 m/s
186km X 187km orbit to 90km X 186km orbit. Delta V: 28 m/s
Total Delta V: 87/115 m/s.
Officially: Further testing of station design, on-board systems and equipment; conduct of scientific and technical research and experiments in outer space. Further testing of station design, on-board systems and equipment; conduct of scientific and technical researc h and experiments in outer space.

Transmission of color and black-and-white USSR central television programmes to a network of receivers for collective use. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 99 deg E in 1981 As of 3 September 2001 located at 96.55 deg E drifting at 0.071 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 2 located at 55.67E drifting at 0.097E degrees per day.

Passive naval electronic intelligence satellite. The satellite was placed in an initial 147 km x 442 km orbit at 65 degree inclination. The US-PM's propulsion module fired at apogee to circularize the orbit. Replaced the only previous remaining US-PM satellite which ended operations in November and reentered earlier in December 1999.

More than three weeks after it was undocked and placed in a parking orbit, an unmanned Russian Progress resupply vehicle was manually redocked to the International Space Station (ISS) this morning to be used as a trash receptacle and a fuel farm by the Expedition One crew. Additional Details: here....

AM-5 used a Reshetnev Ekspress-2000 bus with C, Ku, Ka and L-band communications payloads developed in collaboration with the Canadian company MDA. The Briz-M made four burns to deliver Ekspress AM-5 to a sub-geostationary orbit of around 33,800 x 37,800 km x 0.18 deg. It used its on-board electric propulsion system (ion drive) to complete the trek to GEO.

Resurs-P 47KS No. 2 civil imaging spacecraft. The main payload was the Geoton-L1 imager with 0.5m aperture and 38 km swath, 1.0 m panchromatic and 3 to 4m color resolution. Geoton-L1 had 7 passbands and a 216-channel hyperspectral imager. The KShMSA wide field multispectral camera was also part of the Resurs-P primary payload; an AIS ship tracking receiver from OAO RKS and Lomonosov Federal State Univ.'s Nuklon cosmic ray detector were secondary payloads. Nuklon detected cosmic ray nuclei with atomic number 1 to 30 in the 1 to 1000 TeV energy range. Resurs-P went into a 190 km x 428 km initial orbit that was raised to its operational height of 330 km x 471 km on December 29. Sun synchronous orbit; 1150 GMT local time of the descending node.