17 February 1996, 20:43:27 UTC: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory space probe NEAR—Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous—was launched aboard a three-stage McDonnell Douglas Delta II rocket from Launch Complex 17 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The purpose of the 5-year-long mission was to study several near-Earth asteroids, including 253 Mathilde and 433 Eros.

The space probe was renamed NEAR Shoemaker in honor of Eugene Merle (“Gene”) Shoemaker, Ph.D., a well-known planetary scientist who dies in a vehicle collision in Australia, 18 July 1997.

NEAR Shoemaker made its closest approach to 253 Mathilde on 27 June 1997, passing the asteroid at a distance of approximately 1,200 kilometers (746 miles) at 35,748 kilometers per hour (22,213 miles per hour). More than 500 photographic images, along with sensor data, were transmitted to Earth. The space probe’s main engine was then ignited to send it on a new trajectory to 433 Eros.

NEAR Shoemaker was placed into an orbit around 433 Eros on 14 February 2000. NEAR Shoemaker photographed and studied the asteroid for nearly a year, and then on 12 February 2001, after completing 230 orbits, made a soft landing on its surface.

The McDonnell Douglas Delta II 7925-8 Orbital Launch Vehicle is a three-stage, liquid-fueled rocket. It is 125 feet, 4 inches (38.201 meters) long, 8 feet, 0 inches (2.438 meters) in diameter, and weighs approximately 480,000 pounds (217,724 kilograms). At the time, the Delta II was the smallest rocket used to launch a planetary mission.

The first stage is a Thor/Delta XLT-C (“long-tank Thor”), which is 85 feet, 5½ inches (26.048 meters) long, 8 feet, 0 inches (2.438 meters) in diameter, and weighs 224,600 pounds (101,877 kilograms) when fully fueled. The stage is powered by one liquid-fueled Rocketdyne RS-27A rocket engine, rated at 236,992 pounds of thrust (1,054.193 kilonewtons). Fueled with 10,000 gallons (37,854 liters) of RP-1/LOX propellant and oxidizer, the engine has 4 minutes, 25 second burn time.

Surrounding the Thor are nine Alliant Techsytems (ATK) GEM-40 (Graphite-Epoxy Motor) solid fuel boosters. They are 42 feet, 6 inches (12.957 meters) long, and 3 feet, 4 inches (1.018 meters) in diameter, and weigh 28,671 pounds ( kilograms). Each booster produces 110,800 pounds of thrust (492.863 kilonewtons), and have 1 minute, 4 second burn time. Six of the nine GEM-40s are ignited at launch, and the remaining three ignite after the first six burn out.

The second stage is a McDonnell Douglas Delta K, which is 19 feet, 3 inches (5.867 meters) long, 8 feet, 0 inches (2.438 meters) in diameter, and weighs 15,331 pounds ( kilograms). The Delta K is powered by one Aerojet AJ10-118K liquid-fueled rocket engine which produces 9,800 pounds of thrust (43.593 kilonewtons). It has a 7 minute, 11 second burn time.

The third stage is a McDonnell Douglas PAM-D (Payload Assist Module), powered by a Thiokol Propulsion Star 48B solid rocket motor, which produces 15,000 pounds of thrust (66.723 kilonewtons), and has a burn time of 1 minute, 27 second burn time.

The NEAR space probe was designed and built by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. The probe was equipped with an X-ray/gamma ray spectrometer, near-infrared imaging spectrometer and a multi-spectral CCD imaging camera, laser rangefinder and magnetometer. NEAR was 9 feet, ¼-inch (2.749 meters) long and weighed 1,803 pounds (817.8 kilograms). Power was supplied by four solar panels, capable of generating 400 watts.The main engine produced 450 Newtons (101 pounds) of thrust using hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide. A system of 11 hydrazine thrusters and 4 reaction wheels  were used attitude control.

© 2019, Bryan R. Swopes

23 January 2003: The final, very weak signal from Pioneer 10 was received on January 23, 2003 when it was 12 billion kilometers (80 Astronomical Units) from Earth.

The space probe was launched from Earth at 01:49:00 UTC, 2 March 1972, aboard an Atlas Centaur rocket.

“On January 1, 2016, Pioneer 10 was predicted to be 114.07 a.u. from the Earth (about 10 billion miles); and traveling at 12.04 km/s (26,900 mph) (relative to the Sun) and traveling outward at about 2.54 a.u. per year. Voyager 2 is projected to pass Pioneer 10 by April 2019. Sunlight takes 14.79 hours to reach Pioneer 10. The brightness of the Sun from the spacecraft is magnitude −16.6. Pioneer 10 is heading in the direction of the constellation Taurus.

“If left undisturbed, Pioneer 10 and its sister craft Pioneer 11 will join the two Voyager spacecraft and the New Horizons spacecraft in leaving the Solar System to wander the interstellar medium. The Pioneer 10 trajectory is expected to take it in the general direction of the star Aldebaran, currently located at a distance of about 68 light years. If Aldebaran had zero relative velocity, it would require more than two million years for the spacecraft to reach it.” — Wikipedia

UPDATE: As of 22 January 2025, Pioneer 10 is 20,492,813,745.0+ kilometers (12,733,644,109.028+ miles) from Earth in the Constellation Taurus.

© 2025, Bryan R. Swopes

4 January 2004, 04:35 Ground UTC: The NASA Mars Exploration Rover A, named Spirit, landed on the surface of Mars within the large impact crater Gusev. The location of touch down and the starting point for the rover’s exploration of Mars is named Columbia Memorial Station.

© 2017, Bryan R. Swopes

4 January 1959: At approximately 16:40 UTC, the Soviet automatic space probe First Cosmic Ship came within 5,995 kilometers (3,725 miles) of the Moon. It was the first man-made craft to arrive in the vicinity of Earth’s natural satellite.

First Cosmic Ship (which was later known as Мечта (Mechta, “Dream”) and today is called Luna 1) was launched from the Scientific-Research Test Range No. 5 at Tyuratam, Kazakhstan (later named the Baikonur Cosmodrome) at 16:41:21 UTC, 2 January 1959, aboard an 8K72 three-stage launch vehicle.

Mechta was the fourth in a series of lunar probes, and was intended to impact the surface of the Moon.  It was spherical with several antennas, and weighed 361 kilograms (795.9 pounds). The probe carried a magnetometer, Geiger counter, scintillation detector and micrometeorite detector. It was powered by batteries. Radio telemetry equipment relayed the data to Earth.

It was intended that the spacecraft would impact the lunar surface, but an error in programming the third stage burn time caused a near miss. After 34 hours of flight, the probe passed within 5,995 kilometers (3,725 miles) of the lunar surface.  It then entered a solar (heliocentric) orbit between Earth and Mars, where it remains today, circling the Sun every 450.0 days.

The Vostok-L 8K72 was a modified R-7 Semyorka intercontinental ballistic missile. The R-7 rocket was designed by Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, known as The Chief Designer.

The 8K72 version consisted of two core stages with four external boosters. The first stage and each of the boosters were powered by a four-nozzle RD-107 rocket engine burning kerosene and liquid oxygen. Total thrust was approximately 1,100,775 pounds. The second stage used a RD-0105 engine, producing 11,015 pounds of thrust. The Luna 1 was propelled by a third stage which remained attached during the translunar coast phase of flight.

The first two stages were 30.84 meters (101.18 feet) high and weighed 277,000 kilograms (610,680 pounds). The Luna 1 third stage weighed 1,472 kilograms (3,245 pounds), empty. It was 5.2 meters (17.06 feet) long with a diameter of 2.4 meters (7.87 feet).

The 8K72 rocket was capable of launching a 4,000 kilogram (8,818.5 pound) payload into Low Earth Orbit. The last launch of an 8K72 was in 1960, but the current Soyuz launchers are based on this early rocket.

Luna 1 was the first space vehicle to reach escape velocity and leave Earth’s gravitational field; the first to reach the vicinity of the Moon, and the first man-made device to orbit the Sun.

© 2019, Bryan R. Swopes

28 November 1964, 14:22:01.309 UTC: Mariner 4, a space probe designed and built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), lifted off from Launch Complex 12 at the Cape Kennedy Air Force Station, Cape Kennedy, Florida. The two-stage launch vehicle consisted of an Atlas D, number 288, and an Agena D, number 6932.

The Mariner 4/Agena D separated from the first stage Atlas booster at 14:27:23 UTC. A 2 minute, 24 second burn placed the Mariner/Agena in an Earth orbit. At 15:02:53, a one minute, 35 second burn placed the vehicle into a Mars Transfer Orbit. Mariner 4 separated from the Agena D at 15:07:09 UTC. Mariner then went into cruise mode.

The mission of Mariner 4 was to “fly by” Mars to take photographic images and gather scientific data, then relay this to tracking stations on Earth. The spacecraft carried an imaging system, cosmic dust detector, cosmic-ray telescope, magnetometer, radiation detector, solar plasma probe and an occultation experiment.

Mariner 4 overall height, including the mast, was 289 centimeters. The body of the spacecraft had a width of 127 centimeters (4 feet, 2 inches) across the diagonal, and was 45.7 centimeters (1 foot, 6 inches high. 260.8 kilograms (118.3 pounds). Power was supplied by four solar panels, each 176 centimeters (5 feet, 9.3 inches) long and 90 centimeters (2 feet, 11.4 inches) wide. The panels had 28,224 individual solar cells capable of producing 310 watts at Mars.

The rocket, a “1-½ stage” liquid-fueled Atlas LV-3, number 228, was built by the Convair Division of General Dynamics at San Diego, California. It was developed from a U.S. Air Force SM-65 Atlas D intercontinental ballistic missile, modified for use as an orbital launch vehicle.

The LV-3 was 65 feet (19.812 meters) long from the base to the adapter section, and the tank section is 10 feet (3.038 meters) in diameter. The complete Atlas-Agena D orbital launch vehicle is 93 feet (28.436 meters) tall. When ready for launch it weighed approximately 260,000 pounds (117,934 kilograms).

The Atlas’ three engines were built by the Rocketdyne Division of North American Aviation, Inc., at Canoga Park, California. Two Rocketdyne LR89-NA-5 engines and one LR105-NA-5 produced 341,140 pounds (1,517.466 kilonewtons) of thrust. The rocket was fueled by a highly-refined kerosene, RP-1, with liquid oxygen as the oxidizer.

The second stage was an Agena D, built by Lockheed Missiles and Space Systems, Sunnyvale, California. The Agena D was 20 feet, 6 inches (6.299 meters) long and had a maximum diameter of 5 feet, 0 inches (1.524 meters). The single engine was a Bell Aerosystems Company LR81-BA-11, with 16,000 pounds of thrust (71.1 kilonewtons). It was also liquid fueled, but used a hypergolic mixture of nitric acid and UDMH. This engine was capable of being restarted in orbit.

Mariner 4 made its closest approach to Mars, 9,846 kilometers (6,118 miles) on 15 July 1965. The final contact with the probe occurred on 21 December 1967.

© 2019, Bryan R. Swopes

22 October 1975, 05:13 UTC:  The lander from the Soviet space probe Venera 9 touched down on the surface of the planet Venus, at approximately 32° south latitude, 291° east longitude.

The images and other data was transmitted to an orbiting section of Venera 9 for relay to Earth. The lander sent signals for approximately 53 minutes before the orbiter traveled out of range.

Venera 9 had been launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard a Proton-K rocket, 8 June 1975. The space probe weighed 4,936 kilograms (10,882 pounds).

Once in orbit around Venus, the spacecraft separated into the orbiter and lander. As the lander descended to the surface, data was collected about the planet’s atmosphere. A 40-kilometer (25-mile) deep layer of clouds was studied. The cloud bases were about 35–40 kilometers (22–25 miles) above the surface. The clouds contained hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acid, bromine and iodine.

At the planet’s surface the atmospheric pressure was 90 times that of Earth’s. The temperature was measured at 485 °C. (905 °F.).

© 2016, Bryan R. Swopes

11 October 1958: At 08:42:13 UTC (3:42:13 a.m., Eastern Standard Time), Able 2 (later renamed Pioneer 1) was launched from Launch Complex 17A at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on the east coast of Florida., on a mission to orbit The Moon. The launch vehicle was Thor Number 130, DM-1812-6. The mission was carried out by the U.S. Air Force Ballistic Missile Division, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), and the newly established National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

The Thor second stage shut down approximately 10 seconds earlier than planned. An accelerometer had cut off the engine because of an incorrect valve setting. As a result, the space probe did not achieve sufficient velocity to escape Earth’s gravity. It reached a maximum altitude of 71,303 miles (114,751 kilometers) at 11:42 UTC.

An attempt to insert the space probe into a 79,970 × 20,000 mile (128,699 × 32,187 kilometers) orbit failed. The internal temperatures were too cold for the stage’s batteries to ignite the solid fuel rocket engine. 43 hours after launch, Able 2 reentered the atmosphere at 03:46 UTC, 13 October 1958, over the South Pacific Ocean.

The Able 2 space probe is today designated Pioneer 1. It was built by the Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation’s Space Technology Laboratory (STL) in Redondo Beach, California.

The Thor Able was a two-stage orbital launch vehicle which was developed from the Douglas Aircraft Company’s SM-75 Thor intermediate-range ballistic missile.

Designated Thor DM-19, the first stage was 60.43 feet (18.42 meters) long and 8 feet (2.44 meters) in diameter. Fully fueled, the first stage had a gross weight of 108,770 pounds (49,337 kilograms). It was powered by a Rocketdyne LR-79-7 engine which burned liquid oxygen and RP-1 (a highly-refined kerosene rocket fuel) and produced 170,565 pounds of thrust (758.711 kilonewtons). This stage had a burn time of 2 minutes, 45 seconds.

The second stage was an Aerojet General Corporation-built Able, a second stage for the U.S. Navy’s Vanguard rocket. It was 21 feet, 6.6 inches (6.57 meters) long with a maximum diameter of 2 feet, 9 inches (0.84 meters), and had a gross weight of 5,000 pounds (2,268 kilograms). It used an Aerojet AJ10-101 rocket engine which burned a hypergolic mixture of nitric acid and UDMH. The second stage produced 7,711 pounds of thrust (34.300 kilonewtons) and burned for 1 minutes, 55 seconds.

The Altair X248 third stage was developed by the Alleghany Ballistics Laboratory for the U.S. Navy’s Vanguard rocket. It was 4 feet, 11 inches (1.499 meters) long, 2 feet, 7 inches (0.787 meters) in diameter, and weighed 505 pounds (229 kilograms). It was powered by a solid fuel rocket engine producing 2,300 pounds (10.231 kilonewtons) of thrust. Its burn time was 38 seconds.

The lunar probe was the fourth stage of the Thor-Able launch vehicle. It was 74 centimeters (2 feet, 5.13 inches) in diameter, 76 centimeters (2 feet, 5.9 inches) long, and weighed 38.1 kilograms (83.996 pounds). The probe’s external shell was constructed of metal and fiberglass. It carried 11.3 kilograms (24.9 pounds) of instruments designed to measure magnetic fields, radiation and micrometeorites. It also carried an infrared camera system intended to obtain close-up images of The Moon’s surface. Pioneer 1 was spin-stabilized, turning 108 r.p.m.

The probe was equipped with a Thiokol TX-8-6 solid rocket engine to decelerate it for entry into lunar orbit. The rocket engine was the main structural component of the probe. There were 8 vernier rockets to correct its trajectory. The Thiokol TX-8 was produced at the U.S. Army’s Longhorn Army Ammunition Plant near Karnack, Texas. It was designed to power the GAR-1 Falcon radar-homing air-to-air guided missile (later designated AIM-4 Falcon). The rocket motor weighed 11 kilograms (24.3 pounds).

© 2024, Bryan R. Swopes

7 October 1959: An E-2A space probe, Luna 3, was launched by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics at 00:43:39.7 UTC, 4 October 1959, from the Tyuratam Launch Complex (now known as the Baikonur Cosmodrome). The launch vehicle was a 3-stage 8K72 rocket, a variant of the R7 Semyorka two-stage intercontinental ballistic missile. Luna 3 was approximately cylindrical, 130 centimeters (4 feet, 3.2 inches) long, with a diameter of 120 centimeters (3 feet, 11.2 inches). It weighed 278.5 kilograms (614 pounds).

At 1416 UTC, 6 October, the probe made its closest approach as it passed over the lunar south pole at 6,200 kilometers (3,852 miles) and continued around the far side of The Moon in an highly eccentric orbit. For 40 minutes, between 0330 and 0410 UTC, 7 October, cameras aboard Luna 3 took a series of images of the surface. These photographs, taken at a distance of 63,500 to 66,700 kilometers (39,457 to 41,445 miles), were the first photos ever taken of The Moon’s far side. Exposed film from the cameras was processed on board, then transmitted to Earth as television signals.

The orbit of Luna 3 was highly eccentric with a 15 day period. It came as close as 40,638 kilometers and as far as 460,755 kilometers (25,251 miles to 286,300 miles) from The Moon. Contact was lost 22 October 1959. It is believed to have reentered the Earth’s atmosphere after April 1960.

© 2015, Bryan R. Swopes

“This picture of the Earth and Moon in a single frame, the first of its kind ever taken by a spacecraft, was recorded September 18, 1977, by NASA’s Voyager 1 when it was 7.25 million miles (11.66 million kilometers) from Earth. The moon is at the top of the picture and beyond the Earth as viewed by Voyager. In the picture are eastern Asia, the western Pacific Ocean and part of the Arctic. Voyager 1 was directly above Mt. Everest (on the night side of the planet at 25 degrees north latitude) when the picture was taken. The photo was made from three images taken through color filters, then processed by the Image Processing Lab at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Because the Earth is many times brighter than the Moon, the Moon was artificially brightened by a factor of three relative to the Earth by computer enhancement so that both bodies would show clearly in the prints. Voyager 1 was launched September 5, 1977 and Voyager 2 on August 20, 1977. JPL is responsible for the Voyager mission.”

—NASA Greatest Images Archive