Astronomy & Space Fact
On October 11, 1984 Katherine Sullivan was the first U.S. woman to walk in space. During STS-41G, she and Commander Dave Leestma successfully conducted a 3-1/2 hour Extravehicular Activity (EVA) to demonstrate the feasibility of actual satellite refueling.
1965: Launch of Gemini 7 Earth orbiting mission carrying Frank Borman & Jim Lovell.
1972: Pioneer 10 is first spacecraft to fly by Jupiter, comes within about 130,000 km of the cloud tops.
1996 Dec 04 - Launch of the Mars Pathfinder lander & rover mission. Mars Pathfinder arrived at Mars on July 4, 1997 & impacted the surface at 16:57 UT (12:57 PM EDT) at a velocity of about 18 m/s (40 mph). It bounced about 15 meters (50 feet) into the air, bouncing another 15 times & rolling before coming to rest approximately 2.5 minutes after impact & about 1 km from the initial impact site. The landing site was in the Ares Vallis region is at 19.33 N, 33.55 W & was named the Sagan Memorial Station. A six-wheel rover, named Sojourner, rolled onto the Martian surface on July 6 at about 05:40 UT. Mars Pathfinder returned 2.6 billion bits of information, including more than 16,000 images from the lander & 550 images from the rover, as well as more than 15 chemical analyses of rocks & extensive data on winds & other weather factors. The last successful data transmission was on September 27, 1997, the 83rd day of the mission since landing on the surface. This is the second mission in NASA's low-cost Discovery series.