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135 Years Ago: 1871
Aug. 19: Orville Wright born, Dayton, OH.
45 Years Ago - 1961
Aug. 6: Gherman Titov launched aboard Vostok 2, 0600 UT, Baikonur, USSR.
Aug. 15: Explorer 12 launched, 11:21 p.m., EDT, ESMC.
Aug. 23: Ranger 1 launched, failed, 6:04 a.m., EDT, ESMC.
Aug. 25: Explorer 13 launched, 2:29 p.m., EDT, WFF, VA.
Aug. 30: Discoverer 29 launched, 4:00 p.m., EDT, WSMC.
40 Years Ago - 1966
Aug. 10: Lunar Orbiter 1 launched, 3:26 p.m., EDT, ESMC.
Aug. 17: Pioneer 7 launched, 11:20 p.m., EDT, ESMC.
Aug. 24: Luna 11 launch (USSR Moon Orbiter)
Aug. 25: Saturn rocket (SA-202) launched, suborbital flight test, 1:15 p.m., EDT, ESMC.
35 years Ago - 1971
Aug. 25: First supersonic flight of M2-F3, pilot William Dana, DFRF, CA
30 years Ago - 1976
Aug. 9: Luna 24 launch (USSR Moon Sample Return)
25 Years Ago - 1981
Aug. 3: Dynamics Explorer 1 launched, 5:56 a.m., EDT, WSMC.
Aug. 3: Dynamics Explorer 2 launched as part of dual payload, same date, same location.
Aug. 26: Voyager 2, Saturn Flyby.
15 Years Ago - 1991
Aug. 2: STS-43 (Space Shuttle Atlantis) launched 11:02 a.m., EDT, KSC. Astronauts: John Blaha, Michael Baker, Shannon Lucid, David Low, and James Adamson. That same day the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite-5 was ejected into orbit from the cargo bay. Landed Aug. 11, 8:23 a.m., EDT, KSC. Mission duration: 8 days, 21 hours, and 21 minutes.
Aug. 14: Intelsat 6 F-5, an International mammoth communications satellite, was launched from the Kourou Space Center, French Guiana, at 23:15 UT, using the Ariane booster rocket. Aug. 15: Meteor/Toms (Meteor 3-5) launched by the U.S.S.R. using the Tsiklon booster rocket at 9:15 UT. The spacecraft also carried a U.S. built Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) on a joint U.S. and Soviet mission to study the ozone layer. Aug. 30: Solar-A launched from Kagoshima Space Center, Japan at 2:30 UT. A joint UK, US, and Japanese venture, it provided valuable data about the Sun's corona and solar flares. The national name of Solar-A is Yohkoh (meaning "sunlight" in English).
10 Years Ago – 1996
Aug. 7: Announcement of possible microfossils found in ALH84001 Martian Meteorite.
Aug. 17: Soyuz TM-24, a Russian transport spacecraft, carried cosmonauts Claudie Andre-Deshays, Valery Korzun, and Alexander Kaleri to the MIR station. It was launched by a Soyuz-U rocket from Baykonur at 13:17 UT, and docked with Mir at 14:50 UT on August 19.
Aug. 17: ADEOS (ADvanced Earth Observation Satellite) -- Japanese remote sensing spacecraft launched by an H-2 rocket from Tanegashima Space center at 01:53 UT. Named Midori post-launch, it carried instruments to monitor wind and temperature on ocean surfaces and aerosols, ozone, and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Failed on June 30, 1997.
Aug. 21: FAST (Fast Auroral SnapshoT explorer) dedicated to study the physical processes that produce auroras launched at 1:50 PDT by a Pegasus-XL rocket from aboard an L-1011 cargo plane flying out of Vandenberg AFB.
5 Years Ago – 2001
Aug. 6: Galileo, Io 31 Flyby.
Aug. 8: Genesis was launched by a Delta 2 rocket from Cape Canaveral at 12:13 EDT. The mission is among NASA's Discovery Program as Genesis seeks to discover the origin/genesis of solar system. The spacecraft was directly injected into the Langrangian-1 (L-1) region (located at about 1.5 million km in the sunward direction) to collect solar wind samples. Impacted Sept. 8, 2004 at U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground in Utah.
Aug. 10: STS-105 (Space Shuttle Discovery) launched from KSC at 5:10 EDT to dock with the ISS. Astronauts Scott Horowitz, Rick Sturckow, Daniel Barry, and Patrick Forrester. Returned the Expedition 2 crew and transported the Expedition Three crew. Landed at KSC, Aug. 22, 2001, at 2:23 p.m. EDT. Mission duration: 11 days, 21 hours, 12 minutes.
Colin Fries, Author
Steven J. Dick, NASA Chief Historian
Steve Garber, NASA History Web Curator
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For further information email histinfo@hq.nasa.gov
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