NASA’s InSight Mars lander successfully launched this morning from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. As expected, the weather was quite a mess – very foggy – and once the Atlas V RD-180 engine ignited there wasn’t too much more than steam and an orange glow to be seen in the launch video. Of course, […]
It’s been a good long while since I’ve covered a recent rocket launch, but what better of a launch to come back with than the next Mars mission by NASA – InSight, a probe which will land on and study the interior surface of Mars! It’s going to be an amazing mission, to be sure, […]
July 2019 will mark 50 years since the Apollo 11 mission, certainly one of the greatest achievements of humanity. While many fans of space history may be planning their own little anniversary events and the like, YouTube user lunarmodule5 has something a little better in store: a video series covering the entire mission, from pre-launch […]
Today marks an amazing 28 years since the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, one of the premier tools in our study of the origins of the universe. Orbiting the Earth well above the light altering effects of the bulk of the atmosphere, Hubble was placed in a unique position to spend days, weeks, months, […]
In keeping up with the recent anniversary of the launch of Apollo 6, I’m sharing this film from 1968 going over general operations at Kennedy Space Center, specifically in preparation for the Apollo 6 launch. It’s produced more like a proper film than many of the other NASA films from the 60’s I’ve shown here. […]
We have a quick one for you here today – a 1968 film in preparation for the mission of Apollo 6 covering the details on the planned mission. As mentioned before, Apollo 6 was intended to be basically a repeat of Apollo 4, the first test of the Saturn V rocket. That plan didn’t pan […]
Early in the morning of April 4th, 1968, on launch pad 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center, the second Saturn V rocket to fly was launched. This mission was Apollo 6 – another unmanned test of the Saturn V and the Apollo Command-Service module, much the same as the Apollo 4 mission in November of […]
Earlier today on March 21st, 2018 Soyuz MS-08 launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan carrying a new crew of 3, Oleg Artemyev, Andrew J. Feustel, and Richard R. Arnold, to the International Space Station. The Soyuz spacecraft is taking the 2 day route, as opposed to the 6 hour rendezvous and docking method used during optimal […]
I know, I’m behind on just about everything, but I didn’t want to pass up a chance to show a good old Soyuz launch – this one from back on February 13th carrying Progress MS-08 to the International Space Station for a standard resupply mission. It successfully docked 2 days later on February 15th. All […]
On the morning of February 1st, 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia was set to return from it’s 28th mission, STS-107. At 7:59 AM Central time the orbiter disintegrated on re-entry due to damage it had sustained on its left wing during launch on January 16th. In this article, I tell the story from my perspective. […]
The Columbia Disaster February 1st, 2003 7:59 AM Central Standard Time OV-102, Columbia, Disintegrates over Central Texas Total loss of vehicle and crew 15 Years Ago Rick D. Husband William C. McCool David M. Brown Kalpana Chawla Michael P. Anderson Laurel B. Clark Ilan Ramon
In the late evening, just an hour before midnight on January 31st, 1958, the United States launched it’s first satellite – Explorer 1. Explorer 1 was our answer to Sputnik 1 and 2. At least, it was our successful answer – our previous attempt, Vanguard TV3, ended in a very famous disastrous failure barely leaving […]
Today marks 32 years since the Challenger Disaster. On January 28th, 1986, The Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed 73 seconds into it’s 10th mission due to one of its solid rocket boosters having a failed o-ring in a joint between 2 sections of the tubing, causing a burn thorough which over a minute of flight […]
January 27th, 1968 marked one year since the fire at Launch Complex 34 that killed the crew of Apollo 1: Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. One year without a manned American space flight. One year of major change to our space program. One year of relative uncertainty. 1968 would, as fate would have […]
On January 22nd, 1968 a Saturn 1B rocket launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 37B carrying the first Apollo Lunar Module into orbit for its first in-space test flight. While Apollo 4 had tested the massive Saturn V, itself, of course, a critical machine in physically getting to the Moon, Apollo 5 […]