Today in History – February 14, 1990 -  First photo of the solar system is taken and dubbed the “family portrait” of our solar system as seen from outside. Voyager 1 was launched on September 5, 1977 and it passed Saturn in November 1980. It continued a trajectory that took it out of the solar [...]

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Today in History – February 7, 1984 – The first untethered spacewalks were made by Space Shuttle Challenger astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart. Each used a manned maneuvering unit (MMU) in an orbit 150 nautical miles above the Earth. McCandless was the first to leave the cargo bay untethered in space. They [...]

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Today in History – January 28, 1986 – Space Shuttle Challenger explodes after launch, killing the entire crew. American’s stared in shock at their televisions watching the Challenger accident in full motion video. The 35th Challenger’s flight had been previously scheduled for January 22, but delayed because of bad weather, high winds and icicles on [...]

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Today in History – January 14, 2005 – Huygens Probe Lands on Titan. After spending seven years in space, the Huygens probe separated from the main Cassini spacecraft on December 24, 2004, and spent the next three weeks traveling to the moon Titan. After beginning its descent, it transmitted scientific data for nearly five hours [...]

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Today in History – January 4, 2004 – Spirit Rover Lands on Mars. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s  twin Mars rovers -  called Spirit and Opportunity – landed on January 4, 2004 and January 25, 2004, respectively. They were originally scheduled to operate for three months, but were actively collecting and transmitting data for over 6 [...]

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