{"id":325,"date":"2009-08-04T01:45:56","date_gmt":"2009-08-04T01:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress65\/?p=325"},"modified":"2009-08-04T01:45:56","modified_gmt":"2009-08-04T01:45:56","slug":"busy-launch-day-space-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/busy-launch-day-space-history\/","title":{"rendered":"A Busy Launch Day in Space History"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two interesting launches occurred 15 years ago today &#8212; August 3, 1994.  <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>From Edwards Air Force Base, California, a Pegasus rocket launched the Advanced Photovoltaic and Electronic Experiments spacecraft off the wing of NASA&#8217;s B-52 carrier aircraft. APEX was part of the USAF Space Test Program, and carried instruments to study the effects of the Van Allen radiation belt.<\/li>\n<li>And from Cape Canaveral, what might have been an &#8220;ordinary&#8221; launch (except that in space launch there&#8217;s still no such thing) of DIRECTV-2, except that this spacecraft carried the &#8220;SpaceArc&#8221; time capsule. SpaceArc &#8212; the &#8220;space archive&#8221; &#8212; consisted of a reel of 35-mm optical tape containing essays, poems, written music and artwork:  &#8220;the personal expressions of more than 47,000 people from around the world, representing 52 countries,&#8221; according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spacearc.com\/home.asp\">the old web site<\/a>. The archive included messages from then Vice-President Al Gore and his predecessor, Dan Quayle, and is intended to remain in orbit for thousands of years after the satellite&#8217;s useful life.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\nAnd five years ago &#8212; on this date in 2004 &#8212; the Messenger probe to Mercury was launched from Cape Canaveral. Messenger is scheduled to arrive at Mercury and begin orbiting the planet in March 2011 (591 days away, if you&#8217;re counting). Read more about the Messenger mission on the <a href=\"http:\/\/messenger.jhuapl.edu\/\">Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory web site<\/a>.<\/p>\n<a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-share synved-social-size-24 synved-social-resolution-single synved-social-provider-facebook nolightbox\" data-provider=\"facebook\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Share on Facebook\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.grayrinehart.com%2Fblog%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F325&#038;t=A%20Busy%20Launch%20Day%20in%20Space%20History&#038;s=100&#038;p&#091;url&#093;=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.grayrinehart.com%2Fblog%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F325&#038;p&#091;images&#093;&#091;0&#093;=&#038;p&#091;title&#093;=A%20Busy%20Launch%20Day%20in%20Space%20History\" style=\"font-size: 0px;width:24px;height:24px;margin:0;margin-bottom:5px;margin-right:5px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Facebook\" title=\"Share on Facebook\" 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From Edwards Air Force Base, California, a Pegasus rocket launched the Advanced Photovoltaic and Electronic Experiments spacecraft off the wing of NASA&#8217;s B-52 carrier aircraft. APEX was part of the USAF Space Test Program, and carried instruments to \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/busy-launch-day-space-history\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[13,16,26,37,11],"class_list":["post-325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space","tag-air-force","tag-edwards","tag-launch","tag-nasa","tag-space-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}