Space History for October 1

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1847
Playing hooky from a party, Maria Mitchell discovered a non-naked-eye comet, C/1847 T1, known today as Miss Mitchell's Comet.
ref: www.aps.org

1866
R. Luther discovered asteroid #90 Antiope.

1877
J. C. Watson discovered asteroid #175 Andromache.

1881
Born, William Edward Boeing (at Detroit, Michigan, USA), founded an aerospace company
ref: en.wikipedia.org

1911
Born, Martin Schilling PhD, German rocket propulsion engineer, member of the German Rocket Team in the United States after World War II

Martin Schilling PhD (1 October 1911 - 30 April 2000) was a German rocket propulsion engineer at Peenemuende during World War II, and a member of the German Rocket Team in the United States after the war.

Schilling headed the effort to test and debug the V-2 engine production design after the death of Thiel in the August 1943 bombing raid at Peenemuende. The development could not be completed in time, and the complex prototype design went into production instead. After the war, Schilling was brought to the US under Project Paperclip, and as of January 1947, was working at Fort Bliss, Texas. He died from heart failure at a clinic in Burlington, Mass.
ref: www.nytimes.com

1916
J. Rheden discovered asteroid #844 Leontina; M. Wolf discovered asteroids #841 Arabella and #842 Kerstin.

1919
Born, Dmitri Ilyich Kozlov, Russian aerospace engineer, Lead Designer of the R7 (the world's first ICBM), pre-eminent supplier of reliable optical reconnaissance satellites and launch vehicles for the Soviet military
ref: en.wikipedia.org

1921
K. Reinmuth discovered asteroid #960 Birgit.

1926
S. Belyavskij discovered asteroid #1621 Druzhba.

1942
The Bell P-59 Airacomet fighter, the first US jet, first became airborne during high-speed taxi tests.
ref: en.wikipedia.org

1945
Arthur C. Clarke published an article on geosynchronous satellites in the British magazine "Wireless World," expanding on ideas previously presented in his privately circulated paper sent to members of the British Interplanetary Society, among others.
ref: history.nasa.gov

1945
Secretary of War Patterson approved a plan to bring top German scientists to the US to aid military research and development, and a small group of rocket specialists was brought to United States under Project Paperclip to work on missile development.
ref: www.hq.nasa.gov

1949
The Long-Range Proving Ground at Cape Canaveral, Florida, was activated.
ref: www.spaceline.org

1950
Born, Boris Vladimirovich Morukov MD (at Moscow, Russian SFSR), Russian civilian physician (Institute of Medical Biological Problems), Russian cosmonaut (STS 106; nearly 11d 19.25h in spaceflight) (deceased)

Cosmonaut Boris V. Morukov, Russian Space Agency (RSA), STS-106 mission specialist, NASA photo
Source: Wikipedia (spaceflight.nasa.gov killed 25 Feb 2021)
ref: en.wikipedia.org

1958
NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) was "born" as an active US government agency.

NASA was activated on 1 October 1958 in accordance with the terms of Public Law 85-568. The nonmilitary space projects which had been conducted by the Advanced Research Projects Agency, and other agencies, were transferred to the jurisdiction of NASA by an executive order signed by President Eisenhower. This gave NASA 8,240 staff (8,000 from NACA) and a budget of approximately $340 million. Concurrently, NACA, after a 43-year tenure, was inactivated, and its facilities and personnel became a part of NASA.
ref: history.nasa.gov

1961
NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center started operations in rented space in the Gulfgate shopping mall in Houston, Texas.
ref: www.nasa.gov

1962
A 300' (91m) radio telescope became operational at the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory with continuum receivers for 750 and 1400 MHz.
ref: www.nrao.edu

1964
Born, Eric A. Boe (at Miami, Florida, USA), Colonel USAF, NASA astronaut (STS 126, STS 133; over 28d 15.5h total time in spaceflight)

Astronaut Eric A. Boe, STS 126 pilot, NASA photo (3 April 2008)
ref: en.wikipedia.org

1969
The supersonic transport Concorde made its first supersonic flight, attaining a speed of 1,127 kph (700 mph).
ref: www.concordesst.com

1969 22:33:00 GMT
The ESRO 1B/Boreas technology satellite was launched from Vandenburg, California, on a Scout booster, for ionospheric and auroral investigations; it was a partial failure because it was delivered to a lower than planned orbit.
ref: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov

1973
Died, Yuri Aleksandrovich Pobedonostsev, Russian aerospace engineer, Chief Engineer of Nll-88 (1946-49), then Chief Engineer of Nll-125
ref: weebau.com

1980
A. Mrkos discovered asteroid #2404 Antarctica; L. G. Taff and D. Beatty discovered asteroid #2460 Mitlincoln.

1990 21:56:00 GMT
The US Air Force launched Navstar 2-09 (USA 64) from Cape Canaveral, Florida, a GPS Block 2 satellite component of the Global Positioning System, which was placed in Plane D Slot 5.
ref: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov

1997 13:29:00 EDT (GMT -4:00:00)
During the 5h 1m STS-86-1 EVA, Atlantis/Mir astronauts Titov and Parazynski attached a solar array cap to the Mir space station for later installation, retrieved MEEP experiments from Mir's hull, and conducted SAFER backpack tests.

Atlantis was launched 25 September 1997 on the seventh mission to the Russian Mir space station. The on-time liftoff occurred after final approval for the flight was given earlier in the day by NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin, following his review of independent and internal safety assessments regarding the safety of Mir and Shuttle-Mir missions. The reviews included assessments conducted routinely prior to the first Shuttle-Mir dockings, and two independent studies prompted by a spate of problems on the station, including the fire on 23 February and the collision on 25 June between a Progress resupply vehicle and the station's Spektr module.

The STS 86 TI rendevous terminal initiation burn was carried out at 1:32 PM EDT on 27 September, and Atlantis docked with the SO (Docking Module) on the Mir complex at 3:58 PM EDT. At 4:06 PM EDT, the Shuttle took attitude control of the entire Mir complex. At 5:30 PM EDT Commander Solovyev opened the Mir hatch, and after pressure equalization, Commander Wetherbee opened the Shuttle hatch at 5:45 PM EDT, presenting the most welcome gift of Mir's new Motion Control Computer.

The seventh Mir docking mission continued the presence of a US astronaut on the Russian space station with the transfer of physician David A. Wolf to Mir. Wolf became the sixth US astronaut in succession to live on Mir, to continue Phase 1B of the NASA/Russian Space agency cooperative effort. Wolf officially joined the Mir 24 team at noon EDT on 28 September. At the same time, Foale became a member of the STS 86 crew, and began moving his personal belongings to Atlantis.

Foale returned to Earth after spending 145 days in space, 134 of them aboard Mir. His estimated mileage logged was 58 million miles (93 million kilometers), making his the second longest US space flight, behind Shannon Lucid's record of 188 days. His stay was marred by a collision on 25 June between a Progress resupply vehicle and the station's Spektr module, damaging a radiator and one of the four solar arrays on Spektr. The mishap occurred while Mir 23 Commander Vasily Tsibliev was guiding the Progress capsule to a manual docking, and depressurized the station. The crew sealed the hatch to the leaking Spektr module, leaving Foale's personal effects and several NASA science experiments inside, and repressurized the remaining modules.

An internal space walk by Tsibliev and Mir 23 Flight Engineer Alexander Lazutkin was planned to reconnect power cables to the three undamaged solar arrays, but during a routine medical exam on 13 July, Tsibliev was found to have an irregular heartbeat. Foale then began training for the space walk, but during one of the training exercises, a power cable was inadvertently disconnected, leaving the station without power. On 21 July, it was announced the internal space walk would not be conducted by the Mir 23 crew, but their successors on Mir 24. On 30 July, NASA announced that Wendy Lawrence, originally assigned to succeed Foale on Mir, was being replaced by Wolf. The change was deemed necessary to allow Wolf to act as a backup crew member for the space walks planned over the next several months to repair Spektr. Unlike Wolf, the diminutive Lawrence could not fit the Orlan suit used for Russian space walks, and she did not undergo space walk training. (Wolf had originally been scheduled to fly on the STS 89 mission to MIR and join the Mir 24 crew.)

Following their arrival at the station 7 August, Mir 24 Commander Antaoly Solovyev and Flight Engineer Pavel Vinogradov conducted the internal space walk inside the depressurized Spektr module on 22 August, reconnecting 11 power cables from Spektr's solar arrays through a new custom made hatch for the module. During that space walk, Foale remained inside the Soyuz capsule attached to Mir, in constant communication with the cosmonauts and ground controllers.

On 5 September, Foale and Solovyev conducted a six hour external extravehicular activity to survey damage outside Spektr and to try and pinpoint where the breach of the module's hull occurred. Two undamaged arrays were manually repositioned to better gather solar energy, and a radiation device previously left by Jerry Linenger was retrieved.

The first joint US-Russian extravehicular activity during a Shuttle mission, which was also the 39th EVA in the Space Shuttle program, was conducted by cosmonaut Titov and astronaut Parazynski. On 1 October, they entered the Shuttle payload bay while Atlantis was docked to Mir. The airlock was depressurized at around 1:29 PM EDT and the astronauts emerged from the hatch on the tunnel adapter at around 1:35 PM EDT. They affixed a 121 pound Solar Array Cap to the docking module for future use by Mir crew members to seal off the suspected leak in Spektr's hull, and retrieved the four MEEP (Mir Environmental Effects Payload) exposure packages from Mir's SO module. The experiments were attached to the Docking Module by astronauts Linda Godwin and Rich Clifford during Shuttle mission STS 76 in March 1996. The MEEP packages investigate effects of exposure to the space environment on a variety of materials. The solar array cap was too large to be transferred through Mir, and would be needed to seal off the base of the damaged array on Spektr if and when the array was jettisoned by cosmonauts. In addition to retrieving the MEEP, Parazynski and Titov tested several components of the Simplified Aid for EVA Rescue (SAFER) jet pack, a small jet-backpack designed for use as a type of life jacket during station assembly. The airlock was repressurized at 6:30 PM EDT.

During the six days of docked operations, the joint Mir 24 and STS 86 crews transferred more than four tons of material from the SPACEHAB Double Module to Mir, including approximately 1700 pounds of water, experiment hardware for International Space Station Risk Mitigation, experiments to monitor Mir for crew health and safety, a gyrodyne, batteries, three air pressurization units with breathing air, an attitude control computer and many other logistics items. The new motion control computer replaced one that had experienced problems in recent months. The crew also moved experiment samples and hardware and an old Elektron oxygen generator to Atlantis for return to Earth.

During the flight, Wetherbee and Bloomfield fired small jet thrusters on Atlantis to provide data for the Mir Structural Dynamics Experiment (MISDE), which measured disturbances to the space station's components and its solar arrays. Other experiments conducted during the mission were the Commercial Protein Crystal Growth investigation; the Cell Culture Module Experiment (CCM-A), the Cosmic Radiation Effects and Activation Monitor (CREAM) and the Radiation Monitoring Experiment-III (RME-III); the Shuttle Ionospheric Modification with Pulsed Local Exhaust (SIMPLE) experiment; and the Midcourse Space Experiment. Two NASA educational outreach programs were also conducted, Seeds in Space-II, and Kidsat.

Cargo Bay Payloads:
# Bay 1: Tunnel adapter / 2 Carriers for retrieved MEEP experiment
# Bay 2-4: External Airlock / Orbiter Docking System / European Proximity Sensor
# Bay 5-7: Long Tunnel / 2 Carriers for retrieved MEEP experiment
# Bay 8-9: Spacehab Double Module
# Bay 13S: GAS can (SEEDS-II)

In-Cabin Payloads: RME's; KidSat; CPCG; CREAM; CCM-A; MSX; SIMPLEX

Atlantis undocked from Mir at 1:28 PM EDT on 3 October. Just after undocking, the Shuttle continued to back away through a corridor similar to that used during approach with periodic stops to "stationkeep" in order to collect data for the European laser docking sensor. Atlantis backed away in this manner until it reached a distance of 190 meters below Mir. The shuttle then moved back to within 70 meters of the station and conducted a 46 minute flyaround focused on the damaged Spektr Module to determine the location of the puncture in its hull. Solovyev and Vinogradov opened a pressure regulation valve to allow air into the Spektr module while the STS 86 crew looked to see if they could detect seepage or debris particles that would indicate the location of the breach in the damaged module's hull. As expected, the Shuttle crew observed evidence that the leak seemed to be located at the base of the damaged solar panel. (The cap delivered by the Atlantis crew was designed to repair this puncture.) Final separation of Atlantis from Mir took place around 4:28 PM EDT.

STS 86 ended 6 October 1997 when the crew fired the engines to deorbit at 16:47 EDT on revolution 170, and Atlantis landed on Runway 15, Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on the first opportunity after two opportunities on 5 October were waved off due to heavy cloud cover. Rollout distance: 11,947 feet (3,641 meters). Rollout time: one minute, 22 seconds. Orbit altitude: 184 statute miles. Orbit inclination: 51.6 degrees. Mission duration: 10 days, 19 hours, 20 minutes, 50 seconds. This was the last flight of Atlantis prior to departure to California for its second Orbiter Maintenance Down Period (OMDP). The orbiter was scheduled to return to KSC in late August 1998 to begin preparations for STS 92, the third International Space Station assembly flight.

The flight crew for STS 86 was: James D. Wetherbee, Commander; Michael J. Bloomfield, Pilot; Vladimar G. Titov, (RSA) Mission Specialist; Scott E. Parazynski, Mission Specialist; Jean-Loup J.M. Chretien, (CNES) Mission Specialist; Wendy B. Lawrence, Mission Specialist; David A. Wolf, Mission Specialist (returned on STS 89); C. Michael Foale returned from Mir (launched on STS 84).
ref: en.wikipedia.org
ref: www.nasa.gov

2000 22:00:00 GMT
Americom's GE-1A Ku-band satellite was launched from Baikonur on a Proton booster to provide broadcast services for eastern Asia, positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 108 deg E.
ref: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov

2003 04:03:00 GMT
PanAmSat's Horizons 1 (Galaxy 13) communications satellite was launched into orbit on a Zenit-3SL booster from the SeaLaunch Odyssey, stationed near Kirimati, to provide digital data services between the Americas and Asia via a relay station in Hawaii.
ref: nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov

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