Vertical flight interrupted by an explosion in the aft compartment. The engine burned for 33 seconds, and total flight was 128 seconds.

Due to a navigation error, many Dutch civilians were killed instead. After the attacks the Germans fired several rockets to show the Allies that the bombers missed their target.

The fourth U.S.-IGY lunar probe effort, Pioneer IV, a joint project of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and Jet Propulsion Laboratory under the direction of NASA, was launched by a Juno II rocket from the Atlantic Missile Range. Intended to impact on the lunar surface, Pioneer IV achieved earth-moon trajectory, passing within 60,200 km of the moon before going into permanent orbit around the sun.

Korolev believed it would be truly possible with backing from the very top to have a large rocket in the USSR in a very short span of time. Unfortunately at the meeting Korolev made a slip of the tongue he would always regret, admitting that his plan had not been agreed among all of the Chief Designers. This resulted in Khrushchev throwing the matter back for a consensus plan.

Factory roll-out inspection of Atlas launch vehicle No. 100-D was conducted at Convair-Astronautics. This launch vehicle was allocated for the Mercury-Atlas 3 (MA-3) mission.

The Aerojet-General Corporation was named by NAA as a subcontractor for the Apollo service module propulsion system.

Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight George E. Mueller acknowledged receipt from Joseph F. Shea, the Apollo Spacecraft Program Manager at MSC, of a detailed technical description of MSC's plans and development progress toward developing a landing rocket system for Apollo. (MSC had undertaken this effort some months earlier at Mueller's specific request.) Mueller advised Shea that he had asked AAP Deputy Director John H. Disher to work closely with Shea's people to devise a land landing system for AAP built on Houston's effort for Apollo.

Today the trials at Voronin's OKB-124 had to be halted after a 16 day run, when the cabin oxygen level went out of limits. It seems the cosmonauts could control it in flight by closely monitoring the cabin atmosphere composition and changing cartridges as necessary (typically after 5.5 days), but this is not a reliable basis for a flight. For a 20 day flight, a 22-day endurance run on earth should be a minimum, but neither the IMBP or OKB-124 have been able to make the system run longer than 14-16 days before it breaks down. Later the State Commission meets. Cosmos 110 continues in normal flight, the dogs and other life forms are alive. The only minus is that data received is complete due to the failure of the antennae to deploy.

Development tests of atomic clocks.

At 07:35 the first midcourse manoeuvre for Zond 4, then 225,000 km from earth, was cancelled due to an orientation system problem. The sun tracker worked, but the star tracker could not acquire Sirius. The first and second midcourse manoeuvres are not strictly necessary. However if the third midcourse fails, when the spacecraft is 167,000 km from earth on the return leg, the spacecraft will miss the atmosphere and head back out into space. A meeting is held on cosmonaut training. The simulators are still not adequate. Feoktistov is still demanding that he be trained for the first Soyuz docking mission.

Military on full alert; Tyuratam preempted by military through June

Apollo 9 (AS-504), the first manned flight with the lunar module (LM-3), was launched from Pad A, Launch Complex 39, KSC, on a Saturn V launch vehicle at 11:00 a.m. EST March 3. Originally scheduled for a February 28 liftoff, the launch had been delayed to allow crew members James A. McDivitt, David R. Scott, and Russell L. Schweickart to recover from a mild virus respiratory illness. Following a normal launch phase, the S-IVB stage inserted the spacecraft into an orbit of 192.3 by 189.3 kilometers. After post-insertion checkout, CSM 104 separated from the S-IVB, was transposed, and docked with the LM. At 3:08 p.m. EST, the docked spacecraft were separated from the S-IVB, which was then placed on an earth-escape trajectory. On March 4 the crew tracked landmarks, conducted pitch and roll yaw maneuvers, and increased the apogee by service propulsion system burns.

On March 5 McDivitt and Schweickart entered the LM through the docking tunnel, evaluated the LM systems, transmitted the first of two series of telecasts, and fired the LM descent propulsion system. They then returned to the CM.

McDivitt and Schweickart reentered the LM on March 6. After transmitting a second telecast, Schweickart performed a 37-minute extravehicular activity (EVA), walking between the LM and CSM hatches, maneuvering on handrails, taking photographs, and describing rain squalls over KSC.

On March 7, with McDivitt and Schweickart once more in the LM, Scott separated the CSM from the LM and fired the reaction control system thrusters to obtain a distance of 5.5 kilometers between the two spacecraft. McDivitt and Schweickart then performed a lunar-module active rendezvous. The LM successfully docked with the CSM after being up to 183.5 kilometers away from it during the six-and-one-half-hour separation. After McDivitt and Schweickart returned to the CSM, the LM ascent stage was jettisoned.

During the remainder of the mission, the crew tracked Pegasus III, NASA's meteoroid detection satellite that had been launched July 30, 1965; took multispectral photos of the earth; exercised the spacecraft systems; and prepared for reentry.

Successful suborbital research and development flight

DOS-7K #1 completed its factory testing on 3 March. Checkout at Baikonur is to be completed by 9 April, and launch is scheduled for 15 April. The first crew to the station will be launched aboard a Soyuz on 18-20 April. Remaining items to be cleared:

• Vibration qualification test of the station test article are not complete. They will only begin on 5 March and will take two months using 3-shift work. Mishin wants the preliminary results on 20 March.
• Four complete Igla systems are required. Five have been completed and are working satisfactorily.
• The expiration date on the parachute installed in the Soyuz 10 capsule is 15 April. It will have to be repacked before the flight.
• There were numerous failures in the first phase of environmental control system qualification tests. They have to be repaired before the second phase can even be started.
• Mishin wants the first crew to stay on the station for 30 days, the second crew 45 days. Glushko and the doctors say this is a grave risk.

High resolution photo reconnaissance satellite; returned film capsule; maneuverable.

Similar in appearance to the American Telstar and conducted communications technology tests.

Jupiter flyby December 1973; first man-made object to leave solar system. The spacecraft achieved its closest approach to Jupiter on December 3, 1973, when it reached approximately 2.8 Jovian radii (about 200,000 km). As of Jan. 1, 1997 Pioneer 10 was at about 67 AU from the Sun near the ecliptic plane and heading outward from the Sun at 2.6 AU/year and downstream through the heliomagnetosphere towards the tail region and interstellar space. - Additional details.

Payload bay doors on dock, Palmdale, Enterprise (OV-101)

Photo surveillance; returned film capsule; maneuverable.

Complete modification for mated vertical ground vibration test, Edwards, Enterprise (OV-101)

Ocean surveillance; aka White Cloud type spacecraft; Navy Ocean Surveillance Satellite; PARCAE.

Deployed from NOSS 3.

Deployed from NOSS 3.

Replaced Cosmos 1247. Covered Oko constellation plane 5 - 79 degree longitude of ascending node.

Unmanned supply vessel to Mir. Orbit of station at time of rendezvous was 344 X 369 km, 51. 62 deg. Docked with Mir on 5 Mar 1987 12:42:36 GMT. Undocked on 26 Mar 1987 05:06:48 GMT. Destroyed in reentry on 28 Mar 1987 03:49:00 GMT. Total free-flight time 4.01 days. Total docked time 20.68 days.

Ocean surveillance.

Inner and outer airlocks of Kvant-2 module were depressurised for EVA. However the crew could not open the outer hatch, repaired on 2 January 1998 by Solovyov and Vinogradov. The planned EVA was cancelled.