Payload section deployed at 22 seconds. Left animal container recovered. Carried dogs.

After surveying 111 potential bidders, the USAF issued Requests for Proposal to ten companies (Bell, Boeing, Vought, Convair, Douglas, General Electric, Lockheed, Martin, North American, Western Electric). Later McDonnell, Northrop, and Republic were also issued RFP's.

The pilot egress trainer was received from McDonnell and rough water evaluation of the equipment was started immediately by Space Task Group personnel.

NASA announced that the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation had been awarded a contract by the Marshall Space Flight Center to study the feasibility of refueling a spacecraft in orbit.

The group was selected to provide experienced test pilot for the Soyuz manned spaceflight program.. Qualifications: Personal selection.. Beregovoi was a very experienced test pilot, but older than the official age criteria. However he had the support of leading figures in the space program. He joined the cosmonaut team on a 'special basis' in 1964.

Passive commsat; balloon; 1st joint US/USSR space mission. Spacecraft engaged in practical applications and uses of space technology such as weather or communication (US Cat C).

MSC negotiated a backup Block II space suit development program with David Clark Company, which paralleled the Hamilton Standard program, at a cost of $176,000. Criteria for selecting the suit for ultimate development for Block II would be taken from the Extravehicular Mobility Unit Design and Performance Specification. A selection test program would be conducted at MSC using the CM mockup, the lunar simulation facility, and the LEM mockup.

The optimism that permeated the Apollo program was reflected in statements by NASA's Associate Administrator, Robert C. Seamans, Jr., during budget briefings for the forthcoming year. He was "greatly encouraged" by recent design freezes and "very reassured" by testing of propulsion systems and launch vehicle stages. "We really feel," Seamans said, ". . . that we can get off the (lunar landing) flight on an earlier mission than I would have said a year ago?' Certainly it was "conceivable" that the moon landing could come "in early 1970."

Power was applied January 29 and Subsystems Functional Verification Tests (SSFVT) commenced. SSFVT were finished February 12. The Combined Systems Test before spacecraft mating was conducted February 15-16.

Operational radar target for the ABM forces.

Third orbital Fractional Orbital Bombardment System test. First apparently successful test. The warhead was braked to an impact in the Kapustin Yar range.

America is preparing Apollo 9 for flight, and Kamanin muses that the Soviet reply will be the N1 and Ye-8-5, neither of which is proven or reliable. The Soviet Union would have a better chance of sending a manned L1 on a flight around the moon during the first quarter of 1969. Meanwhile Mishin's bureau has a new L3M lunar lander on the drawing boards. This will land 4 to 5 men on the moon, but require two N1 or seven UR-500K launches to assemble in orbit.

RORSAT hardware, representative of production hardware, but using chemical batteries in place of BES-5 nuclear reactor.

A record number of cosmonauts are away from the training centre on public relations trips.

Development of systems for air defence and the control of outer space.

Complete aft fuselage assembly on dock, Palmdale (STA-099)

Obtaining information needed for research into the natural resources of the earth and the development of methods for remote sensing of the underlying surface, and obtaining meteorological information. In addition to Soviet apparatus, carried scientific ap paratus from the German Democratic Republic.

Military navigation satellite.

Carried Romb radar calibration subsatellites.

Physicians and biomedical specialist cosmonauts for planned missions to the Mir space station.

Experienced test pilots were selected to train for manned missions using the Buran space shuttle.

High resolution photo reconnaissance; returned film in two small SpK capsules during the mission and with the main capsule at completion of the mission.

Unmanned resupply vessel to Mir. Docked with Mir on 27 Jan 1992 09:30:43 GMT. Undocked on 13 Mar 1992 08:43:40 GMT. Destroyed in reentry on 13 Mar 1992 15:47:00 GMT. Total free-flight time 2.36 days. Total docked time 45.97 days.

Obtained meterological and solar-terrestrial data. Meteor 3-6 was inserted into an orbital plane 60 degrees to the west of Meteor 3-5's plane and ejected the small German satellite Tubsat B on the second orbit. Meteor 3-6 also carried an integrated French radiometer called SCARAB (Scanner for Radiation Budget) and a German PRARE (Precision Range and Range Rate Experiment) geodetic instrument. The French radiometer was designed to study the Earth's radiation budget over an extended period of time and to measure the effect of clouds on the greenhouse phenomenon. A second SCARAB instrument was manifested on a Meteor spacecraft that was to be launched in 1996, but this did not come to pass. The German PRARE was similar to the instrument carried on ESA's ERS· 1 satellite.

Following the success of the magnetic torque attitude control system that flew on Tubsat-A, researchers and students at Germany's Technical University of Berlin constructed Tubsat-B to test and demonstrate attitude control with a star sensor and three reaction wheels. An on-board 1m telescope was used for astronomy and for Earth observation at 10m resolution. Dimensions of the satellite were 38x38x50 cm, mass 40 kg. Unfortunately communications with the satellite were lost after 39 Days

SDIO sensor technology demonstration; mapped lunar surface; planned asteroid flyby cancelled due to spacecraft failure. After two Earth flybys, lunar insertion was achieved on February 21. Lunar mapping took place over approximately two months, in two parts. The first part consisted of a 5 hour elliptical polar orbit with a perilune of about 400 km at 28 degrees S latitude. After one month of mapping the orbit was rotated to a perilune of 29 degrees N latitude, where it remained for one more month. This allowed global imaging as well as altimetry coverage from 60 degrees S to 60 degrees N. After leaving lunar orbit, a malfunction in one of the on-board computers on May 7 at 14:39 UTC (9:39 AM EST) caused a thruster to fire until it had used up all of its fuel, leaving the spacecraft spinning at about 80 RPM with no spin control. This made the planned continuation of the mission, a flyby of the near-Earth asteroid Geographos, impossible. The spacecraft remained in geocentric orbit and continued testing the spacecraft components until the end of mission. - Additional details.

Because the Apstar failure happened a few seconds later than Optus, the consequences were catastrophic. The vehicle was destroyed, and the falling wreckage landed on a village down-range of the launch site, killing at least 20 and perhaps as many as 120 people.

Stationed at 39.8E. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 40 deg E in 1996-1999 As of 5 September 2001 located at 40.11 deg E drifting at 0.042 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 11 located at 74.36E drifting at 1.416W degrees per day.

Geosynchronous communications satellite launched to supplement Panamsat's Galaxy cable TV distribution constellation. It carried Ku and C band transponders and was to be stationed at 127 deg W. A replacement for Galaxy 10, lost on the first Delta 3 launch failure. Stationed at 123 deg W. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 123 deg W in 2000. As of 3 September 2001 located at 122.99 deg W drifting at 0.002 deg E per day. As of 2007 Mar 11 located at 123.03W drifting at 0.000E degrees per day.

First Chinese military communications satellite. Perhaps an update of the DFH-3 design. Stationed at 98 deg E. The first in a planned constellation of satellites to be launched through 2010. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 98 deg E in 2000. As of 5 September 2001 located at 98.03 deg E drifting at 0.005 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 10 located at 97.95E drifting at 0.009W degrees per day.

The astronauts installed plume deflectors around the Zvezda thrusters and set up some exposure experiments. The Pirs airlock was depressurized probably about 1510 UTC, with hatch open at 1519 UTC; hatch close was at 2118 UTC and repressurization began at 2120 UTC.

Solar irradiance monitoring, climatology mission. Launch delayed from December 1 and 13, 2002.