Tag: NASA History

On May 6, 2004, NASA announced the selection of its 19th group of astronauts. The group comprised 11 candidates – two pilots, six mission specialists, and three educator mission specialists – and included two women, two Hispanic Americans, and one African American. Three astronauts from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) joined the 11 NASA astronauts for the 20-month training program to qualify as mission specialists, following which they became eligible for flight assignments. They comprised the last group of astronauts selected to fly on the space shuttle. All members…

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Enterprise, the first space shuttle orbiter that NASA built, arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida on April 10, 1979. Although not space worthy, as a pathfinder Enterprise carried out tasks critical to ensuring the success of the space shuttle program. During its four-month stay at KSC, Enterprise validated procedures for the assembly of the space shuttle stack and interfaces at the launch pad. The tests proved valuable in preparing the shuttle for its first orbital mission. Earlier, Enterprise proved the flight worthiness of the shuttle during atmospheric…

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On Apr. 6, 1984, space shuttle Challenger took off on its fifth flight, STS-41C. Its five-person crew of Commander Robert L. “Crip” Crippen, Pilot Francis R. “Dick” Scobee, and Mission Specialists Terry J. “TJ” Hart, James D. “Ox” Van Hoften, and George D. “Pinky Nelson flew a seven-day mission that expanded the shuttle’s capabilities. They deployed the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF), the largest and heaviest shuttle payload up to that time. They retrieved, repaired, and redeployed the failing Solar Max satellite in a highly complex choreography of rendezvous and…

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On Nov. 5, 1958, NASA, newly established to lead America’s civilian space program, formally established the Space Task Group (STG) at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, to implement one of the nation’s top priorities – to develop a spacecraft capable of sending humans into space and returning them safely to Earth. In January 1959, the STG selected a contractor to build the spacecraft for Project Mercury and began the process of choosing who would fly the spacecraft. President Dwight D. Eisenhower directed NASA to choose its first astronauts…

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On March 3, 1959, the United States launched Pioneer 4 with the goal of photographing the Moon during a close flyby. As part of the International Geophysical Year that ran from July 1, 1957, to Dec. 31, 1958, the United States planned to send five probes to study the Moon. The first three planned to orbit the Moon, while the last two simpler probes planned to photograph it during flybys. After NASA opened for business in October 1958, the new space agency inherited the Pioneer program from the Advanced Research…

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“A bird cannot fly with one wing only. Human space flight cannot develop any further without the active participation of women.” – Valentina Tereshkova “If we want scientists and engineers in the future, we should be cultivating the girls as much as the boys.” – Sally Ride “International cooperation is very necessary. Chinese have a saying, ‘When all the people collect the wood, you will make a great fire.’” – Liu Yang As of Feb. 29, 2024, 75 women have flown in space. Of these, 47 have worked on the…

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In 1994, a joint NASA and Department of Defense (DOD) mission called Clementine dramatically changed our view of the Moon. As the first U.S. mission to the Moon in more than two decades, Clementine’s primary objectives involved technology demonstrations to test lightweight component and sensor performance. The lightweight sensors aboard the spacecraft returned 1.6 million digital images, providing the first global multispectral and topographic maps of the Moon. Data from a radar instrument indicated that large quantities of water ice may lie in permanently shadowed craters at lunar south pole,…

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