Korolev has issued a letter requested eight new Vostok 3A spacecraft to be built in 1962-1963. He recommends that they should be finished as the 1100 to 1300 kg heavier 'Vostok-2', to be boosted by the 11A57 rocket, developed originally for the Zenit-4 spy satellite. These Vostok-2's will be used for docking experiments, to form EO Experimental Orbital stations, and to develop spacecraft systems for flight to the moon. The VVS fully supports these plans. One of the docking spacecraft will be piloted, the other unpiloted.

Two aerodynamic strakes were added to the CM to eliminate the danger of a hypersonic apex-forward trim point on reentry. (During a high-altitude launch escape system (LES) abort, the crew would undergo excessive g forces if the CM were to trim apex forward. During a low-altitude abort, there was the potential problem of the apex cover not clearing the CM. The strakes, located in the yaw plane, had a maximum span of one foot and resulted in significant weight penalties. Additional Details: here....

NASA's Flight Research Center (FRC) announced the award of a $3.61 million contract to Bell Aerosystems Company of Bell Aerospace Corporation for the design and construction of two manned lunar landing research vehicles. The vehicles would be able to take off and land under their own power, reach an altitude of about 1,220 meters (4,000 feet), hover, and fly horizontally. A fan turbojet engine would supply a constant upward push of five-sixths the weight of the vehicle to simulate the one-sixth gravity of the lunar surface. Tests would be conducted at FRC.

Smirnov insisted on the following after reviewing Korolev's design: 1) there must be a space suit for every crew member; 2) the spacecraft must be able to use lift during re-entry to change its landing point; 3) the spacecraft must have ejection seats. Korolev and his assistants categorically rejected these demands. Smirnov was only insisting on the availability of suits, not that they be worn at all times; and only on small lifting surfaces to give the capsule more manoeuvrability during re-entry. But Korolev rejected even this. Later the commission went to Chelomei's bureau to see his Raketoplan manned spaceplane design. But this was not even laid out on paper yet, with the draft project not scheduled to be completed until the end of February. Chelomei has already been working on this for two years. In January 1961 he gave a presentation to the General Staff and made big promises in regard to this spacecraft - but nothing has been completed. The only spacecraft that will be realistically available in the next three to five years is Korolev's - anything else would only be purely experimental.

The urn with Korolev's ashes is placed in the Kremlin Wall by an honor guard of cosmonauts and the highest leaders of the state. Kamanin knows that the like of Korolev will not be seen again. There are dozens of Chief Designers, but none with the genius, talent, and drive of Korolev. Kamanin worries for the future in the space race with the Americans. Even in life, Korolev was never able to achieve more than one or two spaceflights per year. Now, in 1966, they are supposed to achieve four times that flight rate without him.

Launched from Cape Canaveral, a Titan IIIC (Vehicle #13) space booster lifted eight 100-pound military communications satellites into synchronous orbits 21,000 miles above the equator. The satellites, together with the seven placed in orbit on 16 June 1966, formed the Initial Defense Satellite Communication System (IDSCS). Space craft engaged in investigation of spaceflight techniques and technology (US Cat A).

Launched from Cape Canaveral, a Titan IIIC (Vehicle #13) space booster lifted eight 100-pound military communications satellites into synchronous orbits 21,000 miles above the equator. The satellites, together with the seven placed in orbit on 16 June 1966, formed the Initial Defense Satellite Communication System (IDSCS). Space craft engaged in investigation of spaceflight techniques and technology (US Cat A).

The engineering team at Yevpatoriya celebrated Mishin's birthday and Volynov's survival after his re-entry. These were four stressful days -- aside from the Soyuz missions, Babakin was commanding the Venera 5 and 6 probes to Venus, which had been launched on 5 and 10 January.

After Shatalov and Yeliseyev transferred to Soyuz 4, Volynov remained behind to live through the most unbelievable re-entry in the history of spaceflight. The service module of the Soyuz failed to separate after retrofire. Once the Soyuz started reaching the tendrils of the atmosphere, the combined spacecraft sought the most aerodynamically stable position - nose forward, with the heavy descent module with its light metal entry hatch at the front, the less dense service module with its flared base to the back. Luckily the struts between the descent and service modules broke off or burned through before the hatch melted through and the descent module righted itself, with the heat shield to the rear, before being consumed. Due to a failure of the soft-landing rockets the landing was harder than usual and Volynov broke his teeth. The landing came at 7:58 GMT. Additional Details: here....

Continued operation of the long-range telephone and telegraph radio-communication system within the Soviet Union and transmission of USSR central television programmes to stations in the Orbita and participating international networks (international cooperation scheme).

Spacecraft engaged in practical applications and uses of space technology such as weather or communication (US Cat C). Launch vehicle put payload into geosynchronous transfer orbit Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 22 deg W in 1980-1990 As of 28 August 2001 located at 174.83 deg W drifting at 0.082 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 10 located at 84.20W drifting at 0.376E degrees per day.

Stationed at 140 deg E. Provision of telephone and telegraph radiocommunications and television broadcasting. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 140 deg E in 1985-1987; 53 deg E in 1987-1989; 11 deg W in 1989-1991 As of 5 September 2001 located at 22.94 deg W drifting at 0.085 deg E per day. As of 2007 Mar 10 located at 14.60W drifting at 0.040W degrees per day.

A sixteen month overhaul of China's space tracking fleet was completed in Shanghai. The upgraded ships were capable of global tracking and control with a 400-fold increase in data transfer rates. The fleet was now ready for support of the first test launch of a Chinese manned spacecraft. To support this, for the first time three Yuanwang tracking ships would be deployed in the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans.

Space shuttle Columbia's astronauts pointed two Israeli cameras over the Atlantic and the Mediterranean today in search of small dust particles that might impact the weather and began experiments in human life sciences in the third day of the STS-107 scientific research flight. Additional Details: here....

CDR Whitson and FE-2 Tani started out with the daily reading of SLEEP (Sleep-Wake Actigraphy and Light Exposure during Spaceflight) experiment data accumulated during the night, for logging and filling in questionnaire entries in the SLEEP session file on the HRF-1 laptop for downlink. Additional Details: here....