Valentine's day in space history
Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2024 8:19 pm
Hey all, happy Valentines day!
I have covered my bases on this. My other half doesn't care for chocolate or flowers; Sarah and I have a hard time getting her presents. She never wants anything. Well, she used to... always oven mitts. After the third pair you know what I did? I bought her a pair of welding gloves and said These should last you forever, you need to think of something else my dear
That was three years ago and she still has and loves them. Though I'm still waiting for the "something else".
So now every year I make her a card. Why that? Because Hallmark does not and probably should not have my sense of humour. Take that as you want, but it always brings a smile (and maybe a roll of the eyes) to her face
My daughter Sarah will probably go see her boyfriend. They've been together since she was 15, almost 4 years ago now. Impressive at that age; that was not me! He's a good kid; Sarah has him well trained (he got me a Linken Park CD for X-mas) but he always looks like a deer in the headlights when he sees me. I remember the feeling, but he seriously needs to chill!
Love is in the air on this date, and so were a few spacecraft doing their labours of love thousands, millions and even billions of kilometers/miles from home. Here's what was going on on this date years ago:
61 years ago, in 1963:
Syncom 1 is launched to be the first geosynchronous communications satellite, but fails before reaching orbit.
Syncom 1 was launched on a Thor-Delta rocket. About 5 hours after launch the apogee motor was fired to place the satellite into a near-synchronous orbit. At about the time the motor completed its 20 second burn all contact was lost. NASA never re-established contact with it, though it was sighted by the Boyden Observatory at Bloemfontein, South Africa on March 1.
52 years ago, in 1972:
Luna 20 (USSR) is launched to the Moon; the eighth Soviet attempt to bring back soil from the surface.
Luna 20 was the second of three successful Soviet lunar sample return missions and the eighth attempt; the only other successes were Luna's 16 (1970) and 24 (1976). Luna 20 returned to Earth with it's 100 gram sample on the 25th of February.
44 years ago, in 1980:
The Solar Maximum Mission satellite (SolarMax) is launched to study the Sun.
The Solar Maximum Mission satellite was designed to investigate Solar phenomena, in particular solar flares. After an attitude control failure in November 1980 it was put in standby mode until April 1984 when it was repaired by the crew of Challenger (STS-41-C).
On December 2nd 1989 it re-entered the Earth atmosphere and burned up. In addition to the Solar science it provided, it also discovered 10 comets.
38 years ago, in 1986:
After the flyby of Uranus, Voyager 2 performs its only midcourse correction on its way to Neptune.
Not much to say about this, though it is impressive; it was the only correction in almost 3 1/2 years of travel between Uranus and Neptune!
35 years ago, in 1989:
The Delta II 6000 makes its maiden flight, launching the first modern Block-II satellite, USA-35, for the Global Positioning System.
The Delta II series were updated Thor-Delta rockets, and became one of the world's most successful expendable space launch vehicles, with over 100 flights. The USA-35 satellite was the first of a set of 21 that were launched on Delta rockets.
34 years ago, in 1990:
Voyager 1 is turned around to take the Solar System Portrait (Portrait of the Planets), 4 billion miles from the Sun.
Crazy as it sounds, when I first saw this I got goosebumps It's amazing how vast space is!
NASA's site on this:
Solar System Family Portrait
24 years ago, in 2000:
The NEAR Shoemaker probe arrives at the asteroid Eros.
NEAR entered orbit around Eros becoming the first human-made object to orbit an asteroid. It was also the first time the U.S.A landed a probe on another solar system body, having been beaten by the Soviets with the Moon, Mars and Venus. Near was not designed as a lander, but land it did, and returned data for two weeks.
It failed on Feb. 28th, 2001.
23 years ago, in 2001:
Thomas Jones and Robert Curbeam Jr. perform the 100th space walk in the United States space program.
Aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis (STS-98 and the first human spaceflight launch of the 21st century), the two astronauts installed the Destiny science module to theISS , and also practised retrieving an "unconsious" space walking astronaut back to safety, with one playing the "unconsious" role. Must've been fun!
18 years ago, in 2006:
Weywot, a moon of the TNO Quaoar, is discovered by Michael Brown and T.A. Suer using images acquired by the Hubble telescope.
Named after the Tongva (the Mission Indians of coastal Southern California) sky god and son of Quaoar (an important mythological figure), Weywot is thought to be a fragment of Quaoar that was ejected into an eccentric orbit around the dwarf planet by a major impact event billions of years ago.
For a dwarf planet that's only about 1000km's wide (600 miles) and 6.5 billion KM's (4 billion miles) away from us, that is impressive that it was even found!
13 years ago, in 2011:
Stardust/NExT flies by Comet Tempel 1 and sends back images.
Stardust-NExT was a follow-on mission that repurposed the Stardust spacecraft for a close re-encounter with comet Tempel 1.
The objective was to examine the area where Deep Impact, which visited Tempel 1 in 2005, had released an impactor on the surface of the comet.
The mission marked several firsts, including the first time a comet had been revisited by a spacecraft and the first time a comet had been studied before and after its close flyby of the sun.
And that's all I could come up with
Alrighty. I was on the road at 5AM and home by 1PM. I started this at about 1:30 and now it's coming up to three. I should probably have a shower and make myself presentable, at the very least to a certain degree....
And in a very platonic way, I love this forum and all of you on here; my on-line family. I hope you have a good day, and celebrate it with those that are close; be it human or pet. Actually, we should do that every day....!!
All the best,
I have covered my bases on this. My other half doesn't care for chocolate or flowers; Sarah and I have a hard time getting her presents. She never wants anything. Well, she used to... always oven mitts. After the third pair you know what I did? I bought her a pair of welding gloves and said These should last you forever, you need to think of something else my dear
That was three years ago and she still has and loves them. Though I'm still waiting for the "something else".So now every year I make her a card. Why that? Because Hallmark does not and probably should not have my sense of humour. Take that as you want, but it always brings a smile (and maybe a roll of the eyes) to her face
My daughter Sarah will probably go see her boyfriend. They've been together since she was 15, almost 4 years ago now. Impressive at that age; that was not me! He's a good kid; Sarah has him well trained (he got me a Linken Park CD for X-mas) but he always looks like a deer in the headlights when he sees me. I remember the feeling, but he seriously needs to chill!
Love is in the air on this date, and so were a few spacecraft doing their labours of love thousands, millions and even billions of kilometers/miles from home. Here's what was going on on this date years ago:
61 years ago, in 1963:
Syncom 1 is launched to be the first geosynchronous communications satellite, but fails before reaching orbit.
Syncom 1 was launched on a Thor-Delta rocket. About 5 hours after launch the apogee motor was fired to place the satellite into a near-synchronous orbit. At about the time the motor completed its 20 second burn all contact was lost. NASA never re-established contact with it, though it was sighted by the Boyden Observatory at Bloemfontein, South Africa on March 1.
52 years ago, in 1972:
Luna 20 (USSR) is launched to the Moon; the eighth Soviet attempt to bring back soil from the surface.
Luna 20 was the second of three successful Soviet lunar sample return missions and the eighth attempt; the only other successes were Luna's 16 (1970) and 24 (1976). Luna 20 returned to Earth with it's 100 gram sample on the 25th of February.
44 years ago, in 1980:
The Solar Maximum Mission satellite (SolarMax) is launched to study the Sun.
The Solar Maximum Mission satellite was designed to investigate Solar phenomena, in particular solar flares. After an attitude control failure in November 1980 it was put in standby mode until April 1984 when it was repaired by the crew of Challenger (STS-41-C).
On December 2nd 1989 it re-entered the Earth atmosphere and burned up. In addition to the Solar science it provided, it also discovered 10 comets.
38 years ago, in 1986:
After the flyby of Uranus, Voyager 2 performs its only midcourse correction on its way to Neptune.
Not much to say about this, though it is impressive; it was the only correction in almost 3 1/2 years of travel between Uranus and Neptune!
35 years ago, in 1989:
The Delta II 6000 makes its maiden flight, launching the first modern Block-II satellite, USA-35, for the Global Positioning System.
The Delta II series were updated Thor-Delta rockets, and became one of the world's most successful expendable space launch vehicles, with over 100 flights. The USA-35 satellite was the first of a set of 21 that were launched on Delta rockets.
34 years ago, in 1990:
Voyager 1 is turned around to take the Solar System Portrait (Portrait of the Planets), 4 billion miles from the Sun.
Crazy as it sounds, when I first saw this I got goosebumps
It's amazing how vast space is!NASA's site on this:
Solar System Family Portrait
24 years ago, in 2000:
The NEAR Shoemaker probe arrives at the asteroid Eros.
NEAR entered orbit around Eros becoming the first human-made object to orbit an asteroid. It was also the first time the U.S.A landed a probe on another solar system body, having been beaten by the Soviets with the Moon, Mars and Venus. Near was not designed as a lander, but land it did, and returned data for two weeks.
It failed on Feb. 28th, 2001.
23 years ago, in 2001:
Thomas Jones and Robert Curbeam Jr. perform the 100th space walk in the United States space program.
Aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis (STS-98 and the first human spaceflight launch of the 21st century), the two astronauts installed the Destiny science module to the
18 years ago, in 2006:
Weywot, a moon of the TNO Quaoar, is discovered by Michael Brown and T.A. Suer using images acquired by the Hubble telescope.
Named after the Tongva (the Mission Indians of coastal Southern California) sky god and son of Quaoar (an important mythological figure), Weywot is thought to be a fragment of Quaoar that was ejected into an eccentric orbit around the dwarf planet by a major impact event billions of years ago.
For a dwarf planet that's only about 1000km's wide (600 miles) and 6.5 billion KM's (4 billion miles) away from us, that is impressive that it was even found!
13 years ago, in 2011:
Stardust/NExT flies by Comet Tempel 1 and sends back images.
Stardust-NExT was a follow-on mission that repurposed the Stardust spacecraft for a close re-encounter with comet Tempel 1.
The objective was to examine the area where Deep Impact, which visited Tempel 1 in 2005, had released an impactor on the surface of the comet.
The mission marked several firsts, including the first time a comet had been revisited by a spacecraft and the first time a comet had been studied before and after its close flyby of the sun.
And that's all I could come up with
Alrighty. I was on the road at 5AM and home by 1PM. I started this at about 1:30 and now it's coming up to three. I should probably have a shower and make myself presentable, at the very least to a certain degree....
And in a very platonic way, I love this forum and all of you on here; my on-line family. I hope you have a good day, and celebrate it with those that are close; be it human or pet. Actually, we should do that every day....!!
All the best,