January 11, 2016 - An Orbital Endeavour Over Down Under
An Orbital Endeavour Over Down Under Astronaut Leroy Chiao conducts an extravehicular activity (EVA, or spacewalk) in the open payload bay of the orbiter Endeavour during STS-72, which launched from Kennedy Space Center twenty years ago this week. During STS-72, Japan’s Space Flyer Unit experimental spacecraft was retrieved after ten months in orbit and NASA’s OAST Flyer was deployed and retrieved, both using the Remote Manipulator System Arm—aka Canadarm—operated by Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission specialist Koichi Wakata. Both spacecraft can be seen berthed in Endeavour’s payload bay, wrapped in their metallic multi-layer insulation. The turquoise waters of Shark Bay off the western coast of Australia are visible in the background.
Image credit: NASA
Weekly Calendar
January 11-17, 2016
Holidays - Sky Events - Space History
Monday 11
1787: William Herschel discovers Uranian moons Oberon and Titania
1978: First triple docking: Soyuz 26, Soyuz 27, Salyut 6
1996: STS-72 Endeavour launched
1998: Lunar Prospector arrives at Moon
Tuesday 12
1907: Sergei Korolev born
1986: STS-61C Columbia launched
1997: STS-81 Atlantis launched
2005: Deep Impact spacecraft launched
Wednesday 13
Neptune 2° south of Moon
1610: Galileo discovers Ganymede, moon of Jupiter
1978: NASA selects first women astronauts
1993: STS-54 Endeavour launched
Thursday 14
Mercury in inferior conjunction
Moon at perigee
1975: Earth Resources Technology Satellite is renamed Landsat
2005: Huygens probe lands on Titan
2008: MESSENGER spacecraft makes its first flyby of Mercury
Friday 15
Uranus 1.5° north of Moon
1973: Luna 21 lander and Lunokhod 2 rover land on Moon
1976: Helios 2 launched
2006: Stardust spacecraft returns samples of comet dust
Saturday 16
First Qtr Moon 6:26 PM ET
1969: First docking of two human spacecraft (Soyuz 5 and Soyuz 4)
2003: STS-107 Columbia launched
Sunday 17
1985: 1,037th and final Aerobee sounding rocket launched