Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson issued a memo to the Armed Forces Policy Council to end the argument between the Air Force and Army on responsibility for missile programs. In an effort to settle the areas of jurisdiction for the services, Secretary Wilson ruled that all long-range missiles, ICBMs as well as IRBMs, with a range of more than 200 miles, would be given to the Air Force.

Air Research and Development Command began a strong effort to orient the work of the command to meet accelerating demands of space technology. A Ballistic Missile Space Vehicle Working Group, appointed by the Commander on 18 January 1957, was convened to establish "new Research and Development Parameters for the Technical Program. " The group's work, essentially, was to predict Air Force space vehicle requirements and developments over the next 15 year time period. (Ltr, Col R. V. Dickson, Asst Dep Cmdr (R&D), to Cmdr AFBMD, 26 Nov 57, subj: Ballistic Missile/Space Vehicle Working Group.)

An intended lunar probe launched from the Atlantic Missile Range by an Atlas-Able booster disintegrated about 45 seconds later when the protective sheath covering the payload detached prematurely. The probe was sponsored by NASA, developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and launched by the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division.

Soviet Union needs a manned L1 to fly in the 8 to 12 December lunar launch window in order to beat Apollo 8. The primary issue in the next 3 to 4 months will be how to answer the impending American Apollo 8 flight. The Soviet Union needs to fly a manned L1 in the 8 to 12 December lunar launch window. But the spacecraft is still considered too unsafe for manned flight. The Apollo 8 mission is risky, but the US can't fly the Apollo spacecraft to the moon unmanned...

Beregovoi is to be named commander of the Gagarin Centre. Gagarin himself was being prepared for the job, but his death in a plane crash ended that plan. The other cosmonauts are not ready for command. The centre desperately needs the two planned L3 trainers: the TBK-150 and Volchuk. Kamanin has been jerked around for four months on the issue. Even if the simulators were delivered, he would still need 2 million roubles and an additional 30 to 40 staff to install and operate them.

Kutakhov visits the cosmonaut training centre. He is still against the VVS being involved in manned spaceflight. He tells Kamanin that Kamanin's draft resolution on the use of space for reconnaissance, communications, navigation, and piloted flight is not appropriate for 1971 - more like 1980. In the evening, Kamanin talks to Nikolayev about Tereshkova's complaints. He claims that in seven years he has only had two or three of these blow-ups with her. He blames her in-laws for starting the whole thing and keeping the bad feelings going.

A meeting with LV Smirnov and MV Keldysh (Mishin Diaries 2-296) goes through a shopping list of the vast work needed to be done on MKBS On accelerating the work on MKBS:
- Power
- Life support systems
- Equipment for scientific research
- Equipment for the benefit of the national economy
- Funding
- Building design and experimental base
- Development of production capacity
- Expansion of cooperation.

MSFC awarded Chrysler's Space Division a contract modification for additional work on Saturn IB launch vehicle booster stages. The contract extension would run through 31 January 1974. The additional work was to refurbish four S-IB booster stages that would be used in the Skylab Program in 1973. The fourth vehicle (SA-209) would be assigned as a backup. All four stages had been in storage for several years. The major portion of the work would be removing the stages from storage, preparing them for delivery to KSC, and providing launch support to them throughout the Skylab launch readiness period, which would end in early 1974. Most of the work would be done at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, but some work would be done at MSFC.

First orbital test of Chinese recoverable photo surveillance satellite. The spacecraft was brought down early, after three days in orbit, due to problems with the attitude control system cold gas supply. Along the skirt of the return capsule some wires and instruments were burnt during re-entry and capsule impacted far from its planned landing point. However usable film was obtained from the capsule. The Chinese Academy of Space Technology organised a team to determine the cause, and improvements were made in the next spacecraft of the model. Additional Details: here....

Provision of uninterrupted round the clock telephone and telegraph radiocommunication in the USSR and simultaneous transmission of colour and black-and-white USSR central television programmes to stations in the Orbita network. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 35 deg E in 1982-1989 As of 3 September 2001 located at 70.20 deg W drifting at 9.239 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 10 located at 51.72E drifting at 9.241W degrees per day.

Stationed at 95 deg E. Relaying of telephone and telegraph information. Second launch in Altair/SR system for communication with Mir space station and other orbital spacecraft. In late July 1988 Cosmos 1897 was moved from its station at 95 degrees East to 12 degrees East to support the Buran shuttle test flight of November 14, 1988. During February 1987 the satellite was moved back to its original position at 95 degrees East. The satellite drifted to 90 degrees East by March 1991. By late April it was maneuvered it back to 95 degrees East, but by the end of 1991 it had drifted to 77 degrees East and was considered inoperative. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 95 deg E in 1987-1988; 12 deg E in 1988-1989; 95 deg E in 1989-1992 As of 5 September 2001 located at 62.12 deg E drifting at 0.168 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 10 located at 94.48E drifting at 0.087E degrees per day.

Mir Expedition EO-04. Carried Alexander Volkov, Sergei Krikalev, Jean-Loup Chretien to Mir; returned Volkov, Krikalev to Earth. Initial Orbit: 194 X 235 km. Thereafter maneuvered to rendezvous orbit 256 X 291 km before docking with Mir in 337 X 369 km at 17:16 GMT 28 November.

Mir expansion module. Scheduled docking 2 December delayed due to failure of solar panel to extend and failure of automatic rendezvous system. Faults corrected by ground control and docked with Mir December 6, 1989 at 12:21 GMT. Transferred to lateral port December 8.
Officially: Delivery to the Mir orbital station of additional equipment and apparatus for the purpose of expanding the research and experiments conducted in the interests of science and the national economy.

ISS Servicing flight. Launch delayed from November 14. The Progress M1-7 Russian automatic cargo carrier soft docked with the International Space Station Zvezda module at 1943 GMT on Nov 28. The docking probe retracted, but the eight peripheral latches would not engage. It turned out that a rubber seal had been left on the docking ring by Progress M-45. Cosmonauts from aboard the station cleared the debris in a spacewalk on December 3. As they watched from a few meters away Progress M1-7 was commanded to a hard dock with the station. NASA referred to this flight as `Progress 6'. It delivered 2.5 tonnes of food, fuel and equipment to the station, as well as a microsatellite named Kolibri. The Expedition 4 crew finished loading trash into Progress M1-7 on 19 March 2002, and it undocked from Zvezda's aft port at 1743 UTC. The Kolibri-2000 microsatellite was ejected from the Progress cargo compartment at 2228 UTC; Progress fired its engines to deorbit over the Pacific at about 0127 UTC on Mar 20.

The crew of Endeavour was awakened at 7:26 a.m. to begin a day that will see the installation of the Port One (P1) truss onto the International Space Station. The P1 is the third such truss to be installed on the station this year and is one of 11 truss segments that will make up the station's final Integrated Truss Structure. Additional Details: here....

A new Yaogan satellite. The orbit was very similar to that of the Yaogan 1, 3 and 10 satellites though to be radar imaging vehicles developed by the Shanghai Academy of Space Technology (SAST). Placed in sun synchronous orbit with 04:30 Equator crossing time.