A Working Group on Lunar Exploration was established by NASA at a meeting at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Members of NASA, JPL, Army Ballistic Missile Agency, California Institute of Technology, and the University of California participated in the meeting. The Working Group was assigned the responsibility of preparing a lunar exploration program, which was outlined: circumlunar vehicles, unmanned and manned; hard lunar impact; close lunar satellites; soft lunar landings (instrumented). Preliminary studies showed that the Saturn booster with an intercontinental ballistic missile as a second stage and a Centaur as a third stage, would be capable of launching manned lunar circumnavigation spacecraft and instrumented packages of about one ton to a soft landing on the moon.

Decree 138-48 'On termination of work on the La-350 Burya at OKB-301' was issued. Project finally cancelled based on availability and invulnerability of R-7, R-9, and R-16 ICBM's. Flight test for technology purposes of already-built missiles was allowed to the end of the year.

The cosmonauts visit Korolev at OKB-1 for the first viewing of the mock-up of the Soyuz spacecraft. Korolev announces that single-place Vostoks will fly no more, and that instead four of the spacecraft will be completed during 1964 to take three crew members. This decision has been taken since it was now certain that Soyuz will not be ready to fly in 1964, and the impending first flights of American Gemini and Apollo spacecraft will give the USA a lead in manned spaceflight before Soyuz missions can be flown.

Kamanin is disturbed by the decision. He recalls that in 1961 flight of the Vostok with two or three crew was discussed, with flights to occur in 1962-1963. But at that time Korolev cancelled the plans, saying the Soyuz would be used for such missions. Now Soyuz will not fly until 1965, and he has changed his tune. Furthermore, the modified Vostok is inherently risky, with no way to save the crew in case of a launch vehicle malfunction in the first 40 seconds of flight. Unlike Vostok, the three crew will not have individual ejection seats or parachutes to give them a chance of escape in the event of an abort. The crew will be subject to 10 to 25 G's during an abort. There is no assurance the environmental control system can be modified to handle three crew. It all seems very unsafe, and Kamanin believes the six consecutive successful Vostok flights have given Korolev's engineers a false sense of the safety of the Vostok system. Kamanin is perplexed. How does he plan to convert a single-place spacecraft to a three-place spacecraft in a few months? Korolev has no clear answers, but asks for the cosmonauts' support of the scheme.

The 3KD spacecraft will be known as Voskhod-2 rather than Vykhod. It was felt that 'Vykhod' ('exit') would reveal the purpose of the flight, which should not be revealed unless the experiment succeeds. The cosmonauts are training very hard in the zero-G trainer and will use the airlock at 37 km equivalent vacuum in the TBK-60 on 8 February. The motto is "Train hard to make it easy to do".

A Senior Flammability Review Board meeting at MSC reached a number of decisions on the CSM. Attending were Robert R. Gilruth, chairman; George M. Low, Kenneth S. Kleinknecht, Aleck C. Bond, Maxime A. Faget, Donald K. Slayton, Charles A. Berry, and Rodney G. Rose, all of MSC; Samuel C. Phillips, NASA Hq.; William B. Bergen and Dale D. Myers, North American Rockwell; and George Stoner, Boeing (nonvoting observer).

Several previous action assignments were reviewed:

1. Component level Flammability Test Program - North American reviewed the results of its material identification and test program, the component test program, and the boilerplate 1,250 tests. These tests had provided the basis for design decisions on selection and application of CM nonmetallic materials.
2. Boilerplate 1224 configuration comparison to CSMs 2TV-1 and 101 - North American presented the comparison and the Board decided that the boilerplate configuration was representative of the "worst case" configuration, considering both 2TV-l and 101.
3. Internal ignition rationale - ignition rationale for the boilerplate 1224 tests was presented to the Board. Nichrome wire ignitors were used with the ignitor wire embedded in potting. In some locations a Ladicote cover was applied over the potting and ignitor. The Board pointed out that the ignition techniques were not really representative of actual operating conditions and were indeed overly severe.
4. Crew communications umbilical - North American was evaluating a fluorel crew communications umbilical as well as fluorel oxygen umbilicals. A Beta sleeve over the oxygen and crew communications umbilicals would also be evaluated for its operational acceptability by the Crew.

The Board concluded that the material changes made in the CM had resulted in a safe configuration in both the tested atmospheres. The Board agreed "that there will always be a degree of risk associated with manned space flight," but the risk of fire "was now substantially less than the basic risks inherent in manned space flight."

Among decisions reached were:

1. the CSM 2TV-1 and 101 coaxial cable configuration would be tested in the 60-percent-oxygen and 40-percent nitrogen atmosphere;
2. material improvements and testing would be continued and changes would be phased in, pending the availability of proved materials; and
3. action would be taken to be prepared to use a 60-percent-oxygen and 40-percent-nitrogen prelaunch atmosphere in CSM 101.

Kamanin flies back to Moscow aboard an An-24. Plans for the Cosmonaut Centre are discussed during the flight. It is to consist of 600 officer, 8 generals (vs. 1 currently), 3 directorates (vs. 1 now), and 6 deputy positions (instead of 3). It will become the country's centre for both cosmonaut training and scientific research. Vershinin had spent all day at Chkalovskiy on 3 February. He was unable to get anything going on these plans despite promises to implement them by higher officers.

After rechecking the systems in the LM, astronauts Shepard and Mitchell separated the LM from the CSM and descended to the lunar surface. Shepard piloted the spacecraft to a routine landing at 09:18:11 GMT about 350 miles (563 kilometers) west-southwest of the center of the moon's visible side. Antares was only 175 feet (53 meters) from its targeted landing site. Additional Details: here....

NPO Energia developed for the Ministry of Defence the interorbital tug Gerkules with 550 kW maximum output and continuous operation in the 50-150 kW range for 3 to 5 years. In 1986 an interorbital tug was studied to solve the specific application of transporting heavy satellites of 100 tonnes to geostationary orbit, launched by Energia.

Transmission of Central Television programmes to a network of receivers for collective use. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 99 deg E in 1982-1983 As of 28 August 2001 located at 30.39 deg W drifting at 1.165 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 11 located at 85.74E drifting at 1.235W degrees per day.

Civilian navigation satellite. Positioned in plane 13 of constellation. Testing of components and equipment of a space navigation system being set up to determine the position of civil aircraft and ships of the USSR merchant marine and fishing fleet at any point on the oceans and seas. Two amateur satellite transponders, RS12 and RS13, were secondary payloads on the Cosmos 2123 navigation satellite. These transponders were developed at the Kaluga Electromechanical Plant under the direction of Aleksander Papkov and were launched aboard several satellites by the USSR during 1978-1991.

Joined Raduga 1-2 at 48 deg E; third launch of alternate Raduga design. Extension of the telephone and telegraph radio communications system on the territory of the Russian Federation. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 49 deg E in 1994-1999 As of 1 September 2001 located at 49.75 deg E drifting at 0.057 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 10 located at 100.54E drifting at 0.021W degrees per day.

A tragic conjunction of circumstances caused the failure of this experiment. In soviet times successes caused an enormous publicity explosion. Nowadays the balance goes the other way: extensive information and publicity before an interesting hazardous operation and when there is a failure a strong hangover afterwards. For me the days before the execution of the experiment were hectic. Lots of people, among them even some who never before were not interested in spaceflight, tackled me to get information. The media had given them the impression that the Russians were about to install a real midsummer night's sun. As much as possible, often even disappointing those enthusiasts, I tried to explain them that this was just an experiment to try out the methods and the technologies of a solar reflector for the far future and that it had not been planned to surprise us with an overwhelming happening.

It was clear the Russians were not happy with the enthusiasm and attention before and that some of them would prefer a little bit soviet-like publicity: so exuberant joy when a risky attempt was successful , but silence after a failure.

What went wrong? Just when Padalka transmitted the command to unfold the reflector packages, the Progress-M40 got a command from earth to deploy a Kurs antenna. One slip of the reflector got stuck behind this antenna and the unfolding process stopped. After the retraction of the antenna and a motor burn of the Progress-M40 the reflector came free, but a second attempt to deploy the reflector with the centrifugal forces of the spinning around its X-axis Progress-M40 failed. After analyses and nightly deliberations the Russians decided to blow off the experiment and to put the Progress-M40 on a destruction course.

Progress-M40:

On 4.02.1999 at 09.59.32 UTC the freighter separated from the aft (Kvant-1) docking port of Mir.

On 5.02.1999 at 1016 UTC Progress-M40 got the impulse to bring it back into the atmosphere. At 1110 UTC Progress-M40 burnt up over a designated area in the Pacific East of New-Zealand.

Communications:

These began with the reception between 1302 and 13.03.30 UTC of the 922.755 mc beacon and telemetry transmitter of Progress-M40. This was for me the prove that Progress-M40 was flying autonomously. Mir's radio conversations during the following passes of Mir and Progress-M40 made it clear that the experiment was not proceeding according to plan. Padalka reported hat he had switched off several systems and obviously the crew transferred the control of Progress-M40 to TsUP.

Avdeyev continuously reported to TsUP the distances between Mir and Progress-M40 with the times. During the pass in orbit 74054, 1439-1440 UTC, he reported that at 13.54.40 UTC the distance had been 4090 Meters. At about 1439 UTC the distance was approx. 2 KM. For the measurements Avdeyev had to soar from port-hole to port-hole. Regularly he reported that it was difficult to track and to observe the Progress-M40 due to the sunlight shining in his eyes and now and then Mir's solar panels hampered him. Possibly Avdeyev had to report the distances to the man at TsUP who controlled the Progress-M40.

Now and then the UKW-2 (130.165 mc) was in use for communications. During the pass in orb. 74055, (1606-1615 UTC) he continued to report the distances. One of my friends, radio-amateur Hans van Dijk (NL number 10204), picked up images of the Progress-M40 transmitted to earth with SSTV on 145.985 mc.

The failure of the experiment was discussed during radio traffic. Padalka did not make a fuss about this, but he was disappointed about the fact that the crew had not been able to carry out their work. He expressed his satisfaction about the fact that the control of Progress-M40 with the TORU and the transfer of commands for the experiment worked flawlessly. He regretted the fact that they had installed all equipment to film and photograph the events in vain. He joked that they might be able to try it again in 6 years. About this all and the plans with this experiment for the next day he had a conversation with Flight control chief V.A. Solovyov.

During the communication window in orb. 74057/58, 1915-1926 UTC, the crew, certainly unintended, startled the flight controller at TsUP by switching off the transmitter. This man possibly thought that something was wrong (in fact a free flying freighter not far from Mir!) and reacted immediately. Avdeyev told him that all was well on board.

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

HESSI, the sixth Small Explorer, carried a rotating modulation collimator transform telescope, imaging solar flares in the hard X-ray spectrum. The launch marked the return to flight of Pegasus after the Hyper-X failure. The launch was originally to have occurred on 28 March 2001. The L-1011 launch aircraft took off at 19:29 GMT from the Cape Canaveral Skid Strip RW30/12, and headed out to the drop area at 28.0 N 78.5 W over the Atlantic. Drop of the Pegasus in the Atlantic Drop Zone at 28.0 N 78.5 W was at 20:58 GMT, with ignition 5 seconds later. The Pegasus reached orbit at 21:07 GMT. On the first pass it was confirmed that the solar panels had opened.

The satellite rotated at 15 rpm, imaging by reconstructing the Fourier components from the time modulation of the solar x-ray flux through a set of 9 grids each 9 cm in diameter. It was expected to make images with a resolution of 2 arcseconds at 40 keV energies and 36 arcseconds at 1 MeV energies. The launch delays meant that HESSI missed some of the best flares at solar max. Air dropped in Mayport DZ.

Americom 10 (AMC-10) was a replacement satellite for Satcom C3. It was to be located at 135 deg W. The C-band satellite, to be accompanied by AMC-11 later in 2004, were designed to support SES Americom's cable network in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, and Mexico. The satellite had a design life of 15 years and carried 24 x 36 MHz C-band transponders. As of 2007 Mar 10 located at 134.97W drifting at 0.005E degrees per day.

ISS mission 54P; docked at the Pirs module of the ISS at 22:22 GMT the same day as launch. Undocked from the Pirs module at 13:58 GMT April 7; it remained in a 360 x 417 km orbit for Radar-Progress ionospheric studies until April 18, when it was deorbited over the Pacific.