Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
	01 Columbia Lost	02	03 STS-60 STS-63 STS-41-B	04	05 6:48pm» Last Quarter Moon 6:49pm» Half Moon (waning)	06
07 (Week 06) STS-98 STS-122	08 Jules Verne	09	10 Galileo Europa 13	11 STS-82 STS-99	12	13 John Dreyer 9:51pm» New Moon 9:52pm» New Moon
14 (Week 07) Luna 20 Syncom 1	15	16 Miranda	17	18 Pluto Discovered	19 Nicolas Copernicus	20 Friendship 7 Galileo - Europa
21 (Week 08) Mercury Atlas 7:42pm» First Quarter Moon 7:43pm» Half Moon (waxing)	22 STS-75 Cassini - Titan	23 Supernova 1987A	24 Bumper WAC B-5 Pulsars	25 Pershing Rosetta - Mars Flyby	26 Apollo AS-20	27 Bernard Lyot
28 (Week 09) STS-36 Discoverer I New Horizons - Jupiter 11:38am» Full Moon 11:39am» Full Moon

Description:

(2003) STS-107 Columbia Disentigrates on Reentry

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(1994) STS-60 Discovery Launch - Wake Shield Facility (WSF); SPACEHAB-2

SPACEHAB module experiments that were activated included the Organic Separations payload, which is designed to investigate cell separation techniques for possible pharmaceutical and biotechnology processing, and the Equipment for Controlled Liquid Phase Sintering Experiment package, a furnace designed to explore the possibilities of creating stronger, lighter and more durable metals for use in bearings, cutting tools and electronics.

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(1995) STS-63 Discovery Launch - SPACEHAB-3; Mir rendezvous

It was the 67th shuttle mission, and the 20th for Discovery. A night launch, it was also the first shuttle mission with a female pilot. The mission was a rendezvous with the Mir space station in preparation for STS-71, the first mission to dock with Mir.

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(1984) STS-41-B Challenger Launch - WESTAR-VI; Indonesian Communication Satellite PALAPA-B2

STS-41-B was the tenth Space Shuttle mission and the fourth flight for Challenger.

Liftoff occurred at 8 a.m. EST, on February 3, 1984. Two communications satellites one for Western Union (WESTAR) and the other for Indonesia (Palapa B-2) were deployed about 8 hours after launch.

Time:

6:48pm

Description:

Last Quarter Moon

Time:

6:49pm

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Half Moon (waning)

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(2001) STS-98 Atlantis Launch - ISS Assembly Flight 5A , U.S. Destiny Laborator

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STS-122 Launch, Atlantis

Installed ESA's Columbus Laboratory (International Space Station 1E)

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(1828) Jules Verne's Birthday

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(1998) Galileo, Europa 13 Flyby

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(1997) STS-82 Discovery Launch - Second Hubble Space Telescope (HST) servicing.


The STS-82 mission was the second in a series of planned servicing missions to the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope (HST). HST was placed in orbit on April 24, 1990 by the Space Shuttle Discovery on STS-31.

Starting on the third day of the mission, the seven-member crew were to conduct four spacewalks to remove two older instruments and install two new astronomy instruments, as well as other servicing tasks. The two older instruments being replaced are the Goddard High Resolution Spectrometer and the Faint Object Spectrograph. Replacing these instruments are the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) and the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS).

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(2000) STS-99 Endeavour Launch - Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM)

The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) is an international project spearheaded by the National Imagery and Mapping Agency and NASA, with participation of the German Aerospace Center DLR. Its objective was to obtain the most complete high-resolution digital topographic database of the Earth.

Description:

(1852) John Louis Emil Dreyer Birthday(February 13, 1852 – September 14, 1926) was a Danish-Irish astronomer.

He was born Johan Ludvig Emil Dreyer in Copenhagen. In 1874, at the age of 22, he went to Ireland to work as the assistant of Lord Rosse (the son and successor of the Lord Rosse who built the "Leviathan of Parsonstown" telescope). In 1878 he went to Dunsink Observatory and in 1882 to Armagh Observatory, where he served as director until 1916.

His major contribution was the monumental New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars, whose catalogue numbers are still in wide use today, as well as two supplementary Index Catalogues.

Dreyer was also a historian of astronomy. In 1890 he published a biography of Tycho Brahe, a noted astronomer from his native country, and in his later years he edited Tycho's publications and unpublished correspondence. History of the Planetary Systems from Thales to Kepler (1905), his survey of the history of astronomy, while dated in some respects, is still a sound introduction to the subject. It is currently printed under the title A History of Astronomy from Thales to Kepler.

He won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1916. A crater on the Moon is named after him.

Time:

9:51pm

Description:

New Moon

Time:

9:52pm

Description:

New Moon

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(1972) Luna 20 Launch - Soviet Mission

Luna 20 was placed in an intermediate earth parking orbit and from this orbit was sent towards the Moon. It entered lunar orbit on February 18, 1972. On 21 February 1972, Luna 20 soft landed on the Moon in a mountainous area known as the Apollonius highlands near Mare Foecunditatis (Sea of Fertility), 120 km from where Luna 16 had impacted. While on the lunar surface, the panoramic television system was operated. Lunar samples were obtained by means of an extendable drilling apparatus. The ascent stage of Luna 20 was launched from the lunar surface on 22 February 1972 carrying 30 grams of collected lunar samples in a sealed capsule. It landed in the Soviet Union on 25 February 1972. The lunar samples were recovered the following day.

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(1963), Syncom 1 Launch (1st Geosynchronous Satellite)

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(1948)Gerard Kuiper's Discovers Uranus' Moon Miranda

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1930 - Clyde Tombaugh discovered the dwarf planet Pluto.

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(1473) Nicolas Copernicus' Birthday - Popularized helocentric (Sun-centered) view of solar system.

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(1962) Mercury Atlas 6 - Friendship 7 - John Glenn

Place a man into earth orbit, observe his reactions to the space environment and safely return him to earth to a point where he could be readily found.
Mission Highlights:

Mission Successful. First American in orbit. Total time weightless 4 hours 48min 27sec.

During the flight only two major problems were encountered: (1) a yaw attitude control jet apparently clogged at the end of the first orbit, forcing the astronaut to abandon the automatic control system for the manual-electrical fly-by-wire system; and (2) a faulty switch in the heat shield circuit indicated that the clamp holding the shield had been prematurely released- a signal later found to be false. During reentry, however, the retropack was not jettisoned but retained as a safety measure to hold the heat shield in place in the event it had loosened.

Description:

(1998) Galileo flew by Europa at at distance of 587 km on February 20, 1998. This encounter is referred to as Europa 6 since it is on the sixth orbit of the 11 orbit tour. During the orbital tour, Galileo flew by Ganymede four times, Callisto three, and Europa three.

Description:

(1961) Mercury- Atlas 2 (MA-2) was launched unmanned on February 21, 1961 at 14:10 UTC, from Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Test objectives for this flight were concerned with the ability of the spacecraft to withstand reentry under the temperature-critical abort conditions and with the capability of the Atlas to meet the proper injection conditions. This Atlas "D" modified for the Mercury mission, was unique in the program in that it incorporated a stainless steel reinforcing band installed around the vehicle between stations 502 and 510. A thin sheet of asbestos was installed between the reinforcing band and the tank skin. This modification was installed as a precaution against the type of failure which had occurred on the previous MA-1 flight. MA-2 flew a successful suborbital mission that lasted 17 minutes 56 seconds. Altitude reached was 114 miles (183 km), speed, 13,227 mph (21,287 km/h). All test objectives were fully met. The capsule was recovered 1,432 miles (2305 km) downrange. Peak acceleration was 15.9 g (156 m/s²). Mass 1,154 kg.

Time:

7:42pm

Description:

First Quarter Moon

Time:

7:43pm

Description:

Half Moon (waxing)

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(1996) STS-75 Columbia Launch - Tethered Satellite System Reflight (TSS-1R); United States Microgravity Payload - 3 (USMP-3)

Commander: Andrew M. Allen (3)
Pilot: Scott J. Horowitz (1)
Mission Specialist 1: Jeffrey A. Hoffman (5)
Mission Specialist 2: Maurizio Cheli (1) - ESA Italy
Mission Specialist 3: Claude Nicollier (3) - ESA Switzerland
Mission Specialist 4 & Payload Commander: Franklin R. Chang-Diaz (5)
Payload Specialist: Umberto Guidoni (1) - Italy

Mission objective
The primary objective of STS-75 was to carry the Tethered Satellite System Reflight (TSS-1R) into orbit and to deploy it spaceward on a conducting tether. The mission also flew the United States Microgravity Payload (USMP-3) designed to investigate materials science and condensed matter physics.

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(2007)Cassini Planetary Probe flyby of Saturn's largest moon Titan from a distance of 590mi (950km).

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm

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SN 1987A was a supernova in the outskirts of the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a nearby dwarf galaxy that orbits the Milky Way. It was close enough that it was visible to the naked eye. It was the closest supernova since SN 1604, which occurred in the Milky Way itself. The light from the supernova reached Earth on February 23, 1987. As the first supernova discovered in 1987, it was labeled "1987A". Its brightness peaked in May with an apparent magnitude of about 3 and slowly declined in the following months. It was the first opportunity for modern astronomers to see a supernova up close. The supernova remnant formed by debris from SN 1987A is one of the most-studied astronomical objects today.

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(1949) Bumper WAC B-5 attained record 244 miles and 5150 mph

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(1968) Jocelyn Bell Discovers Pulsars

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(1960) First Pershing missle test launch from Cape Canaveral

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(2007) Rosetta flyby of Mars for a gravity assist.

About the Mission:
The International Rosetta Mission was approved in November 1993 by ESA's Science Programme Committee as the Planetary Cornerstone Mission in ESA's long-term space science programme. The original mission goal was to rendezvous with comet 46P/Wirtanen. After its launch postponement in January 2003, Rosetta will now aim at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. On its 10 year journey to the comet, the spacecraft will pass close to at least one asteroid.

http://www.esa.int/esaMI/Rosetta/

Description:

(1966) Apollo AS-201 Saturn 1B test launch

This was not only the first flight of the Saturn IB rocket but the first real flight of a production Command and Service Module (CSM-009). It was a Block I version though, whereas all manned missions would end up using the Block II.

The Saturn IB was the uprated version of the Saturn I rocket which had already flown ten times in an earlier part of the Apollo program. The main difference between the rockets was that the first stage engines produced 7.1 million newtons as opposed to 5.8 million newtons on the Saturn I. It also featured a new second stage (the S-IVB, which was also used as the third stage of the Saturn V). The S-IVB could be restarted in space and featured a new hydrogen-burning J-2 engine (which would also be used on the S-II second stage of the Saturn V).

The mission profile was for the first and second stages of the rocket to launch the spacecraft into a high ballistic trajectory. The Service Module engine would then fire to accelerate the spacecraft to a high speed reentry to test the heat shield.

Description:

(1897) Bernard Ferdinand Lyot Birthday(February 27, 1897 in Paris – April 2, 1952 in Cairo) was a French astronomer.

His interest in astronomy started in 1914. He soon acquired a 4-inch telescope and soon upgraded to a 6-inch. From graduation in 1918 until 1929, he worked as a demonstrator at the Ecole Polytechnique. He studied engineering, physics, and chemistry at the University of Paris, and from 1920 until his death he worked for the Meudon Observatory. In 1930 he earned the title of Joint Astronomer of the Observatory. After gaining the title, he earned a reputation of being an expert of polarized and monochromatic light. Throughout the 1930's, he labored to perfect the coronagraph, which he invented to observe the corona without having to wait for a solar eclipse. In 1938, he showed a movie of the corona in action to the International Astronomical Union.

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(1990) STS-36 Atlantis Launch - Department of Defense Mission

It was the 34th Space Shuttle mission, and carried a payload for the U.S. Department of Defense (believed to have been a Misty reconnaissance satellite). It was the 6th flight for Atlantis.

Crew
(total flights to date in parentheses)

John O. Creighton (2), Commander
John H. Casper (1), Pilot
Richard M. Mullane (3), Mission Specialist
David C. Hilmers (3), Mission Specialist
Pierre J. Thuot (1), Mission Specialist

Mission highlights
Department of Defense mission. Classified payload.

It has been reported that STS-36 deployed an Advanced KH-11 photo-reconnaissance satellite that used an all-digital imaging system to return pictures. The satellite was placed into a low earth orbit with a high-inclination to the equator to allow coverage of most of the Earth's surface. The KH-11 series is a digital imaging photo- reconnaissance satellite with both visual and infrared sensors.

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(1959) Discoverer I, ARPA satellite launched into polar orbit on a Thor-Agena A from Pacific Missile Range, Vandenberg AFB. It was the first satellite to be placed into a polar orbit.

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(2007)New Horizons Jupiter Gravity Assist to propel the craft to Pluto. It increased the probes speed to over 50,000km per hour. At that speed it won't reach Pluto until 2015.

Time:

11:38am

Description:

Full Moon

Time:

11:39am

Description:

Full Moon

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