Space Anniversaries: April 2016

"This is indeed a significant milestone in man's long struggle to master his environment.

"No American can help feeling a twinge of regret that it is a Russian name - Maj. Yuri Gagarin - that will be chiseled on this milestone, and not one of our countrymen."

Read the editorial from April 17, 1961.

Read the full article of Russia's achievement.

An attempt to orbit an unmanned Mercury capsule on April 25, 1961, was aborted when the first stage failed to roll properly, but the escape system worked successfully and would have saved an astronaut.

Read the Aviation Week's account from the issue dated May 1, 1961.

NASA's first Orbiting Astronomical Observatory, launched by an Atlas Agena, was lost two days later on April 8, 1966, due to spacecraft systems failure.

See how Aviation Week reported it. 

The Soviet Salyut 1, an unmanned satellite, was launched on April 19 in the first part of an attempt to construct a small manned orbiting station out of separately launched components. 

NASA reported the launch "by Proton K" as the "first launch of an orbital scientific station."

Read the article from Aviation Week dated April 26, 1971.

Aviation Week reported that "data from the Soviet Venrea-9 and -10 Venus landers indicate Venusian rocks have a density and composition of natural radioactive elements similar to those found in terrestrial basalts." 

Read the article from April 26, 1976.

Aviation Week said Columbia's launch "met or exceeded all flight test goals, carrying winged flight into uncharted territory."

In the editorial the launch was described as having departed "well within the strictest airline on-time standards". 

Read the shuttle launch package from the issue dated April 20, 1981.

Astronaut George D.  Nelson, piloting a Martin Marietta manned maneuvering unit, flies between the solar arrays of the Solar Maximum satellite in orbit at 270 nm above the U.S. in an unsuccessful attempt to dock with the observatory.

Read about the cover image from the April 23, 1984 issue.

Endeavour, the newest space shuttle orbiter, was rolled out from Rockwell International Space Systems Div., Palmdale, Calif. April 25, 1991. Endeavour is the first outfitted for 28-day missions, and brings NASA's shuttle fleet back to four orbiters for the first time since the loss of Challenger in 1986. 

With the completion of Atlantis' mission April 11 to deploy the Gamma Ray Observatory, U.S. astronauts resumed extra vehicular activities. 

Read more about the shuttle program gaining momentum in a feature package from May 6, 1991.

The Mars Odyssey, an orbiter designed to map and search for water on Mars, was launched by a Delta 2 rocket from Cape Canaveral on April 7, 2001. It reached Mars on Oct. 23.

See how Aviation Week reported the event a week later in the April 16, 2001 issue.

Also, this month 15 years ago, on April 28, the Russian Soyuz-TM 32 was launched from Baikonur on a Soyuz-U rocket carrying Talgat A. Musabayev and Yuri M. Baturin.

This mission also carried the first commercial space tourist, U.S. businessman Dennis Tito.

Aviation Week reported that NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin said the agency would charge the Russians for any Tito-related U.S. expenses on the International Space Station. Read more in the issue dated May 7, 2001. 

On April 28, 2006, two meteorological satellites CloudSat and Calipso (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation) were launched by a Delta 2 rocket from Vandenberg AFB at 6:02 a.m. EDT.

They work in concert with the three earlier satellites (Aqua, Parasol and Aura), all forming what is named as A-Train. All five have almost the same orbit, crossing the equator within 15 min. of each other.

Read Aviation Week's May 8, 2006 article.

Aviation Week featured a piece about the future of human spaceflght. 

"We're committed to safely transporting astronauts on American-made spacecraft and ending the outsourcing of this work to foreign governments," vowed Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator. 

Read the article from the April 25, 2011 issue.