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Space History for June 19
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1623
Born, Blaise Pascal, French mathematician, physicist
ref: en.wikipedia.org
1846
Born, Antonio Abetti, Italian astronomer (positional astronomy, observations of minor planets, comets, star occultations)
ref: en.wikipedia.org
1911
Robert Goddard received his PhD from Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts. His doctoral thesis "On the Conduction of Electricity at Contacts of Dissimilar Solids" describes a principle very similar to the transistor.
ref: www.astronautix.com
1930
C. Jackson and H. E. Wood discovered asteroid #1595 Tanga.
1933
Born, Viktor Ivanovich Patsayev (at Aktyubinsk, Aktyubinsk Oblast, Kazakh SSR), Soviet engineer, cosmonaut (Soyuz 11/Salyut 1; over 23d 18.25h in spaceflight), member of first crew to stay aboard a space station (Salyut 1) (deceased)
Cosmonaut Viktor Patsayev portrayed on a USSR stamp
Source: Wikipedia
ref: www.spacefacts.de
1950
A. G. Wilson discovered asteroid #1980 Tezcatlipoca.
1956
Died, Thomas J. Watson, computer pioneer, first president of IBM Corporation
ref: www-03.ibm.com
1961
VanCraft Knitwear in Rhode Island began research on space suit components.
ref: er.jsc.nasa.gov
1962 12:14:00 GMT
NASA launched the Tiros 5 weather satellite from Cape Canaveral, Florida, which returned 58,226 cloud cover images before being deactivated on 14 May 1963 due to failed shutter electronics on the wide-angle camera.
ref: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov
1963
USSR's Mars 1 probe passed Mars at a distance of approximately 193,000 km (120,000 mi) and became the first spacecraft to fly by Mars, although communications had been lost so no data was returned from the encounter.
Mars 1 (1962 Beta Nu 1, Mars 2MV-4) was an automatic interplanetary station launched into a 157 x 238 km, 65 degree Earth parking orbit on Sputnik 23, from which it was sent in the direction of Mars, with the intent of flying by the planet at a distance of about 11,000 km. Its announced mission was prolonged exploration of outer space during flight to the planet Mars, establishment of inter-planetary radio communications, photgraphing of the planet Mars and subsquent radio-transmission to Earth of the photographs of the surface of Mars thus obtained. It was designed to image the surface and send back data on cosmic radiation, micrometeoroid impacts and Mars' magnetic field, radiation environment, atmospheric structure, and possible organic compounds. After leaving Earth orbit, the spacecraft and the booster fourth stage separated and the solar panels were deployed. Early telemetry indicated that there was a leak in one of the gas valves in the orientation system so the spacecraft was transferred to gyroscopic stabilization. Sixty-one radio transmissions were made, initially at two day intervals, later at five day intervals, in which a large amount of interplanetary data were collected. On 21 March 1963, when the spacecraft was at a distance of 106,760,000 km from Earth on its way to Mars, communications ceased, probably due to failure of the spacecraft orientation system. Mars 1 closest approach to Mars occurred on 19 June 1963 at a distance of approximately 193,000 km, after which the spacecraft entered a heliocentric orbit.
The probe recorded one micrometeorite strike every two minutes at altitudes ranging from 6000 to 40,000 km due to the Taurids meteor shower, and recorded similar densities at distances from 20 to 40 million km. Magnetic field intensities of 3-4 gammas with peaks as high as 6-9 gammas were measured in interplanetary space and the solar wind was detected. Measurements of cosmic rays showed that their intensity had almost doubled since 1959. The radiation zones around the Earth were detected and their magnitude confirmed.
Mars 1 was a modified Venera-type spacecraft in the shape of a cylinder 3.3 meters long and 1.0 meter in diameter. The spacecraft measured 4 meters across with the solar panels and radiators deployed. The cylinder was divided into two compartments. The upper 2.7 meters, the orbital module, contained guidance and on-board propulsion systems. The experiment module, containing the scientific instrumentation, comprised the bottom 0.6 meters of the cylinder. A 1.7 meter parabolic high gain antenna was used for communication, along with an omnidirectional antenna and a semi-directional antenna. Power was supplied by two solar panel wings with a total area of 2.6 square meters affixed to opposite sides of the spacecraft. Power was stored in a 42 amp-hour cadmium-nickel battery.
Communications were via a decimeter wavelength radio transmitter mounted in the orbital module which used the high-gain antenna. This was supplemented by a meter wavelength range transmitter through the omnidirectional antenna. An 8 centimeter wavelength transmitter mounted in the experiment module was designed to transmit the TV images. Also mounted in the experiment module was a 5-centimeter range impulse transmitter. Temperature control was achieved using a binary gas-liquid system and hemispherical radiators mounted on the ends of the solar panels. The craft carried various scientific instruments including a magnetometer probe, television photographic equipment, a spectroreflexometer, radiation sensors (gas-discharge and scintillation counters), a spectrograph to study ozone absorption bands, and a micrometeoroid instrument.
Mars 1 was originally called Sputnik 30 in the US Naval Space Command Satellite Situation Summary.
ref: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov
1963 08:11:00 GMT
USSR Vostok 6 landed after carrying cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova as the first woman in space. (Tereshkova parachuted to the ground separately, landing at 0820 GMT.)
Vostok 6 (callsign Chaika - "Seagull") was launched by the Soviet Union on 16 June 1963 with Colonel-Engineer Valentina Tereshkova aboard, the first woman in space. She orbited the Earth 48 times in a flight which lasted 2.95 days. The spacecraft was recovered on 19 June 1963, in the Soviet Union.
Sergei Korolev, the Soviet chief rocket designer, had been responsible for the novel idea of placing a woman in space. Vostok 6 was to be a joint mission with Vostok 5, launched on 14 June 1963, the primary mission was to collect data on the effects of space flight on men and women. Valentina came within roughly 5 km of Vostok 5 and made radio contact with Bykovsky. Korolev, not pleased with Valentina's abilities (she had difficulty with engineering topics in her training), suggested that she was psychologically instable, and never allowed her to take control of Vostok 6. She was, basically, along for the ride as a subject in a great experiment. Valentina returned to Earth on 19 June 1963, just three hours before Vostok 5. After entering Earth's atmosphere, Valentina parachuted from her space craft, landing roughly 380 miles northeast of Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Vostok 6 was recovered the same day at the geographical location of 53:16 N/80:27 E, east of where Valentina landed.
ref: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov
1963 09:50:00 GMT
NASA launched the Tiros 7 weather satellite from Cape Canaveral, Florida, which returned over 150,000 cloud cover images, operating normally until 31 December 1965 and sporadically until 3 February 1967.
ref: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov
1963 11:06:00 GMT
USSR Vostok 5 landed after a shorter-than-planned mission. Cosmonaut Bykovsky parachuted separately from the capsule, and landed at 1106 GMT.
Vostok 5 (callsign Yastreb - "Hawk"), the fifth spacecraft in the USSR manned flight series, was launched on 14 June 1963, to study the effects of prolonged space flight on the human organism, for a tandem flight with Vostok 6, and for improvement of spacecraft equipment and pilotage. (Some NASA records mistakenly list the launch date as 15 June.) The spacecraft consisted of a nearly spherical cabin covered with ablative material, three small portholes, and external radio antennas. Radios, a life support system, instrumentation, and an ejection seat were contained in the manned cabin. The cabin was attached to a service module that carried chemical batteries, orientation rockets, the main retro system, and added support equipment for the total system. The service module was separated from the manned cabin on reentry.
Vostok 5, piloted by cosmonaut Lt. Col. Valery F. Bykovsky, was relatively unsuccessful. The launch was delayed repeatedly due to high solar activity and technical problems. Intended to be in orbit for a record eight days, Vostok 5 had troubles from the start. It was finally forced down after five days in space, landing northwest of Karaganda on 19 June 1963, after making only 81 orbits about the Earth; the mission still set a Soviet manned duration record of 119 hour 6 minutes. Problems encountered during the flight included the spacecraft ending up in a lower than planned orbit; the elevated levels of solar flare activity combined with the associated increased atmospheric activity to decay Vostok 5's orbit quickly; temperatures in the service module reached very high levels; a problem with the spacecraft's waste collection system, possibly a spill, made conditions "unpleasant" in the capsule; and, as on Vostoks 1 and 2, the reentry module failed to separate cleanly from the service module when it was time for Bykovsky to come home, such that wild gyrations ensued until the heat of reentry burned through the non-separating retraining strap.
On 16 June 1963, Vostok 6 was launched, with Valentina Tereshkova (the first woman in space) on board. This was to be a joint mission with Vostok 5; the primary mission was to collect data on the effects of space flight on men and women. On the first orbit, Valentina came within roughly 5 km of Vostok 5, the closest distance achieved during the flight, and made radio contact with Bykovsky. Vostok 5 flew with Vostok 6 for 3 days (48 orbits), maintaining two way radio communications, and establishing communications with Earth at regular intervals. The space spectacular featured television coverage of Bykovsky that was viewed in the West as well as in Russia.
See also nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov
1970 11:58:55 GMT
USSR's Soyuz 9 landed, having set an endurance record (almost 17 days, 17 hours) for the crew's time in space.
Soyuz 9, launched 1 June 1970 from Baikonur, was a manned flight endurance test crewed by veteran cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev, commander, and Vitali Sevastyanov, flight engineer. It paved the way for the Salyut space station missions, investigating the effects of long-term weightlessness on the crew, and evaluating the work that the cosmonauts could do in orbit, individually and as a team. The successful flight set a record for the longest manned flight to date, and tested the capacity of the hardware and the human crew. Mission objectives included gathering medical and biological research data on the long term exposure to space conditions, and observing (both visually and photographically) geological and geographical objects, weather formations, water surfaces, and snow and ice covers. Some results were inconclusive due to the slow Sun-oriented rotation of the spacecraft to conserve fuel, producing motion sickness in the cosmonauts. The crew conducted observations of celestial bodies, and practiced astronavigation by locking onto Vega or Canopus, then using a sextant to measure their relation to the Earth horizon. The mission marked a shift in emphasis away from spacefarers merely being able to exist in space for the duration of a long mission (such as the Apollo flights to the Moon) to being able to actually live in space: There was extensive live TV coverage during the flight, the cosmonauts spent time in two-way TV links with their families, watched the World Cup football game, played chess with ground control, and voted in a Soviet election. Numerous course correction exercises were performed, the orbital elements were refined to three decimal places by the crew, and biomedical functions were monitored and tested. The spacecraft soft landed in Kazakhstan on 19 June 1970, and the crew was picked up immediately. Adjusting to Earth gravity seemed to present a minor problem for the two cosmonauts upon their return, they experienced abnormal blood pressure and color perception and fatigue upon landing, but survived the long flight satisfactorily, recovering their strength within about ten days.
ref: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov
1973
The 1h 36m Skylab 2-3 EVA was performed by Skylab astronauts Conrad and Weitz to replace film cartridges for the solar camera.
ref: en.wikipedia.org
1976
NASA's Viking 1 probe went into orbit around Mars after a ten month flight from Earth.
Following its launch on 20 August 1975 and a 10 month cruise to Mars, the Viking 1 Orbiter began returning global images of Mars about 5 days before orbit insertion. It was inserted into Mars orbit on 19 June 1976 and trimmed to a 1513 x 33,000 km, 24.66 hr site certification orbit on 21 June. Imaging of candidate sites was begun and the landing site was selected based on these pictures. The lander separated from the orbiter on 20 July 08:51 UT and landed at Chryse Planitia at 11:56:06 UT. (The landing had been planned for the US Bicentennial on July 4, but was delayed until a suitable landing site was located.) The lander collected the first-ever samples taken from the surface Mars with its robot arm on 28 July. Meanwhile, the orbiter continued photographing Mars. On 25 July 1976, it photographed a mesa in the Cydonia region resembling a humanoid face. The orbiter primary mission ended at the beginning of solar conjunction on 5 November 1976. The extended mission commenced on 14 December 1976 after solar conjunction. Operations included close approaches to Phobos in February 1977. The periapsis was reduced to 300 km on 11 March 1977. Minor orbit adjustments were done occasionally over the course of the mission, primarily to change the walk rate - the rate at which the planetocentric longitude changed with each orbit, and the periapsis was raised to 357 km on 20 July 1979. On 7 August 1980, the Viking 1 Orbiter was running low on attitude control gas and its orbit was raised from 357 x 33943 km to 320 x 56000 km to prevent impact with Mars and possible contamination until at least the year 2019. Orbital operations were terminated on 17 August 1980 after 1485 orbits, and communications with the lander were terminated on 13 November 1982.
See also Viking 1 Lander
ref: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov
1981 12:32:59 GMT
An Ariane rocket launched from Kourou carried the European Meteosat 2 weather satellite and the Indian Apple communications satellite into space, which were installed in geostationary orbits. A CAT 3 test payload was also orbited.
ref: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov
1995
ESA space probe Ulysses made its first pass over the north rotational pole of the Sun.
ref: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov
2001 04:41:00 GMT
The ICO F-2 communications satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral by British New ICO (formerly ICO Global Communications) to provide mobile communications and data/Internet services at S-band, supporting 4500 simultaneous calls.
ref: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov
2002 12:58:00 CDT (GMT -5:00:00)
NASA's STS 111 (Endeavour) landed after completing the International Space Station Flight UF-2 for a crew exchange and delivery of the Mobile Base System.
STS 111 was launched 5 June 2002, the fourteenth shuttle mission to visit the International Space Station. With the launch, astronaut Chang-Diaz became the second human to fly in space seven times, tying a mark set in April 2002 by Jerry Ross on the STS 110 mission.
STS 111 delivered the Expedition Five crew to the station and returned the Expedition Four crew to Earth. Space Shuttle Endeavour also delivered the Mobile Base System (MBS) to the ISS. The STS 111 crew unloaded supplies and science experiments from the Leonardo Multi-Purpose Logistics Module as well, which made its third trip to the orbital outpost.
Three spacewalks were performed during STS 111's stay at the International Space Station, to continue on-orbit construction and to do some maintenance work. The spacewalkers were Mission Specialists Franklin Chang-Diaz and Philippe Perrin. During the first spacewalk, on Flight Day 5, they prepared the Mobile Remote Servicer Base System for installation onto the station's Mobile Transporter on Flight Day 6. They also set the stage for relocation of the P6 Truss during a future flight.
The focus of the second extravehicular activity (EVA) was the outfitting and permanent attachment of the MBS onto the station, on Flight Day 7. The primary task during the final spacewalk, on Flight Day 9, was replacement of a wrist roll joint on the station's robot arm.
All three spacewalks were based from the station's Quest Airlock.
STS 111 ended on 19 June 2002 when Endeavour landed at Edwards Air Force Base, California, completing a successful 5.78 million mile mission. Mission duration: 13 days, 20 hours, 35 minutes. Orbit insertion altitude: 122 nautical miles. Orbit inclination: 51.60 degrees.
The flight crew for STS 111 was: Ken Cockrell, Commander; Paul Lockhart, Pilot; Franklin Chang-Diaz, Mission Specialist 1; Philippe Perrin (CNES), Mission Specialist 2; Valery Korzun, Expedition 5 Commander; Peggy Whitson, Expedition 5 Flight Engineer; Sergei Treschev, Expedition 5 Flight Engineer. STS 111 returned Expedition 4 Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Carl Walz and Dan Bursch from the International Space Station, concluding a record 196-day stay in space. Walz and Bursch broke the US record for the longest single space flight, previously 188 days, set by astronaut Shannon Lucid in 1996.
ref: www.nasa.gov
2003
Japan's Nozomi probe flew by Earth on its way to Mars.
ref: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov
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