45 YEARS AGO – 1961

Nov. 15: Transit IV-B launched, 5:25 p.m.. EST, ESMC.

Nov. 16: Discoverer 35 launched, 4:23 p.m., EST, WSMC.

Nov. 18: Ranger 2 launched, 3:12 a.m.. EST, ESMC.

Nov. 21: The Air Force launched a Titan ICBM from Cape Canaveral carrying a target nose cone to be used in Nike-Zeus antimissile-missile tests. This was the first Titan ICBM to be fired from Cape Canaveral by a military crew.

Nov. 29: Enos, a 37.5 pound five-year-old male chimpanzee, sent aloft at 1:28 PM from Cape Canaveral in a capsule atop a Mercury-Atlas 5 rocket,10:07 a.m., EST, ESMC.

40 YEARS AGO – 1966

Nov. 6: Lunar Orbiter 2 launched, 6:21 p.m., EST, ESMC. Photographed lunar landing sites from lunar orbit.

Nov. 11:The last Gemini flight, Gemini XII (12), was launched on 2:08 p.m., EST, ESMC. During this mission, American astronauts Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin completed three EVAs and a docking with an Agena target vehicle.

35 YEARS AGO – 1971

Nov. 13: Mariner 9 becomes first spacecraft to orbit another planet – Mars. Transmitted 6,876 pictures. Launched May 30, 1971

Nov. 15: Explorer 45 launched, 12:52 a.m. EST, SMR.

25 YEARS AGO – 1981

Nov. 4: Venera 14 Launch ( USSR Venus Lander/Flyby)

Nov. 12:STS-2 launched, 10:10 a.m., EST, KSC, Pad 39A, astronauts Joe Engle and Dick Truly.

Nov. 19: RCA-Satcom 3-R launched, 8:37 p.m., EST, ESMC.

20 YEARS AGO -- 1986

Nov. 13: Polar Bear (Air Force P87-1) launched, WSMC.

15 YEARS AGO – 1991

Nov. 24: STS-44 (Space Shuttle Atlantis) launched 6:44 p.m. EST, KSC. Astronauts Fred Gregory, Tom Henricks. JimVoss, Story Musgrave, and Mario Runco. Deployed the third Defense Support Program satellite. Landed Dec. 2, 5:34 p.m., EST, EAFB, CA. Mission duration: 6 days, 22 hours, 51 minutes.

Nov. 28 -- First in series of improved Block 5D-2 satellites in the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, launched from the WSMC.

10 YEARS AGO – 1996

Nov. 4: Galileo, Callisto 3 Flyby.

Nov. 7: Mars Global Surveyor launched.

Nov. 19: STS-80 (Space Shuttle Columbia) launched 2:55 p.m. EST, KSC. Astronauts: Kenneth D. Cockrell, Kent V. Rominger, Tamara E. Jernigan, Thomas D. Jones, and F. Story Musgrave. Deployed German-built Orbiting and Retrievable Far and Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrograph-Shuttle Pallet Satellite II (ORFEUS-SPAS II) and Wake Shield Facility (WSF). Landed December 7, 6:49 a.m. EST, KSC. Mission duration: 17 days, 15 hours, 53 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