This Week In Space History


      Wednesday March 22nd:
            1981 Soyuz-39 Launch. Dzhanibekov,Gurragcha (Mong). Dock w/ Salyut 6.
            1995 Soyuz TM-20 lands. Viktorenko, Kondakova, Polyakov (445 days).
            1996 Launch of STS-76 - Chilton, Searfoss, Godwin, Clifford, Sega, Lucid.
Third Mir docking flight; Lucid to Mir.

      Thursday March 23rd:
            1965 Launch of Gemini 3 - Grissom, Young (100 x 140 nm, 32.5 deg, 3 orbits).
            1996 Kevin Chilton docks Atlantis to Mir (tail forward). 3rd docking.
            2001 Mir's controlled reentry ends 15 years of on-orbit service.

      Friday March 24th:
            1992 Launch of STS-45 - Bolden, Duffy, Sullivan, Leestma, Foale, Frimount, Lichtenberg.
ATLAS-1 Spacelab.

      Saturday March 25th:
            1655 Saturn's moon Titan discovered.
            1961 Sputnik-10 Launch. 5th Vostok test. Dog, Zvezdochka, recovered.
            1980 Soyuz-T-1 Lands. unpiloted. Unpiloted test of T series complete.
            1992 Soyuz TM-13 lands. Volkov (175 days), Aubakirov (175 days), Flade.
            2014 Launch of Soyuz TMA-12M. Skvortsov, Artem'ev, and Swanson to join ISS Expedition 39/40.

      Sunday March 26th:
            1958 Explorer-3 Launch. Cosmic ray, orbital temp, meteorite experiments.
            2009 Launch of Soyuz TMA-14. Padalka and Barratt, with Simonyi (tourist).

      Monday March 27th:
            1969 Launch of Mariner 7. Flew over Mars' southern hemisphere at 2190 miles;
returned 126 TV pictures, 33 of South polar region.
            1972 Venera-8 Launched to Venus.
            2007 Landing of Endeavour, after mission STS-123, on KSC runway 15 with Eyharts from Expedition 16.
            2015 Launch of Soyuz TMA-16M. Padalka, Kornienko, and S. Kelly to ISS. Kornienko and Kelly for ~1 year.

      Tuesday March 28th:
            1802 Second asteroid, Pallas, discovered.
            1935 Goddard first uses gyroscopes to control a rocket.
            2009 Landing of Discovery, after mission STS-119 on KSC runway 15 with Magnus from Expedition 18.
            2013 Launch of Soyuz TMA-08M. Vinogradov, Musurkin, and Cassidy to join ISS Expedition 35/36.




Space history data compiled by Jay Apt.   Thanks to the following good sources:
TRW Space Log, NASA Glenn Research Center Space Calendar,
Rick von Glahn's CompuServe SpaceForum archive,
Jonathan's Space Report, and astronautix.com

Based on the today.cgi Perl script © 1998 The Puppet Master.
Formdate.pl subroutine © 1997 Craig Patchett & Matt Wright.
 

Space History