Make Your Career Soar
Forty-nine years ago this month, the crew of Gemini VIII successfully regained control of their tumbling spacecraft following failure of an attitude control thruster. The incident marked the first life-threatening on-orbit emergency and resulting mission abort in the history of Amercian manned spaceflight. Gemini VIII was the sixth manned mission… Read More
Seven years ago this month, a United States Navy STANDARD Missile SM-3 Block IA interceptor engaged and destroyed a defunct NRO satellite at an altitude of 133 nautical miles. The relative velocity at intercept was in excess of 22,000 mph. The United States Navy/Raytheon Missile Systems SM-3 (RIM-161) is the… Read More
Fifty-three years ago this week, Project Mercury Astronaut John H. Glenn, Jr. became the first American to orbit the Earth. Glenn’s spacecraft name and mission call sign was Friendship 7. Mercury-Atlas 6 (MA-6) lifted-off from Cape Canaveral’s Launch Complex 14 at 14:47:39 UTC on Tuesday, 20 February 1962. It was… Read More
Fifty-nine years ago this month, the USAF/North American X-10 experimental flight research vehicle achieved a maximum speed of Mach 2.05 during its 19th test flight. The mark established a new speed record for turbojet-powered aircraft. The precedent set by the Nazi V-1 and V-2 Vergeltungswaffen (Vengeance Weapons) in World War… Read More
Forty years ago this week, a USAF/McDonnell-Douglas F-15A Eagle Air Superiority Fighter zoomed to an altitude of 30 km (98,425 feet) in an elapsed time of 207.8 seconds from brake release. The pilot for the record-breaking mission was USAF Major Roger Smith. Operation Streak Eagle was a mid-1970′s effort by… Read More
Fifty-four years ago this month, NASA successfully conducted a critical flight test of the space agency’s Mercury-Redstone launch vehicle which helped clear the way for the United States’ first manned suborbital spaceflight. Riding the diminutive Mercury spacecraft into space and back was a 44-month old male chimpanzee by the name… Read More
Fifty-seven years ago this month, a XSM-64 Navaho G-26 flight test vehicle flew 1,075 miles in 40 minutes at a sustained speed of Mach 2.8. It was the 8th flight test of the ill-fated Navaho Program. The post-World War II era saw the development of a myriad of missile weapons… Read More
Six years ago this month, US Airways Flight 1549 successfully ditched in the Hudson River following loss of thrust in both turbofan engines. Incredibly, all 155 passengers and crew members survived. US Airways Flight 1549 lifted-off from Runway 4 of New York’s LaGuardia Airport at 18:25:56 UTC on Thursday, 15… Read More
Forty-two years ago this month, NASA successfully conducted the sixth lunar landing mission of the Apollo Program. Known as Apollo 17, the flight marked the last time that men from the planet Earth explored the surface of the Moon. Apollo 17 was launched from LC-39A at Cape Canaveral, Florida on… Read More
Forty-six years ago this month, three American astronauts became the first men to orbit the Earth’s Moon during the flight of Apollo 8. This epic mission also featured the first manned flight of the mighty Saturn V launch vehicle as well as history’s first superorbital entry of a manned spacecraft.… Read More
