***** ABSTRACT ART: The Apollo 11 Flight Plan * Launch and Earth Parking Orbit  ………..Nominal launch time is 9:32 EDT… Read more Apollo 11 at 55: Launch, July 16, 1969

June 26, 1984: Steam clouds clear after Discovery’s first launch is aborted. ***** High-speed turbo-pumps whir and wrack seconds from… Read more Forty years ago: “We have a cutoff!”

Bill Anders, who died a pilot’s death. ***** First and foremost, he was a Lunar Module Pilot, slotted to fly… Read more Apollo 8’s Bill Anders, 1933 – 2024

April 13, 1984: This isn’t Florida! Challenger’s landing, diverted to Edwards Air Force Base, kicks up California dust on the… Read more Forty years ago: A last minute switch in Mission 11’s landing

April 11, 1984: Ox von Hoften, left, and Pinky Nelson, on the end of the robot arm, work on the… Read more Forty years ago: Reviving Solar Max

April 10, 1984: The Solar Max satellite sits berthed in Challenger’s payload bay, the Remote Manipulator System (RMS) arm moving… Read more Forty Years ago: Eleventh Shuttle mission snares a satellite

April 8, 1984: George “Pinky” Nelson, flying the Manned Maneuvering Unit (bottom right), closes in for a try to dock… Read more Forty Years ago: Shuttle tries to snag a wobbly satellite

April 8, 1964: The first Gemini, just a shell of the spacecraft, lifts off from Pad 19. ***** Sixty years… Read more Sixty years ago: Gemini takes flight for the first time (sort of)

The day after its April 6, 1984, launch, Challenger drops off the bus-size Long Duration Exposure Facility before continuing to… Read more Forty years ago: 11th Shuttle launches on the first mission to repair a satellite