{"id":722,"date":"2012-02-12T21:26:45","date_gmt":"2012-02-12T21:26:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress65\/?p=722"},"modified":"2012-02-12T21:26:45","modified_gmt":"2012-02-12T21:26:45","slug":"last-titan-iiib-launch-and-latest-asimovs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/last-titan-iiib-launch-and-latest-asimovs\/","title":{"rendered":"Last Titan-IIIB Launch … and the Latest Asimov's"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twenty-five years ago today — February 12, 1987 — a Titan-IIIB launched from Vandenberg AFB carrying a Satellite Data System (SDS) spacecraft.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n(Undated Titan-IIIB [34B] launch. Image from Lee Brandon-Cremer via Wikimedia Commons. Almost certainly this was originally a USAF photograph.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\nAccording to the National Space Science Data Cnter, SDS<\/a> satellites operated in highly elliptical orbits and<\/p>\n

served as a communications link between the Air Force Satellite Control Facility at Sunnyvale, CA, and 7 remote tracking stations located at Vandenberg AFB, Hawaii, Guam, Nahe Island, Greenland, the UK, and Boston.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nThis is significant to me because I know the tracking station in Greenland well. Many years later I commanded it: callsign POGO, the Thule Tracking Station.<\/p>\n

According to this Wikipedia page<\/a>, this was the last launch of the Titan-IIIB series. This particular vehicle was one of the -34B variants. <\/p>\n

At the time of that launch, I was stationed at the AF Rocket Propulsion Laboratory at Edwards AFB, helping prepare for a static test of a full-scale solid rocket motor in support of the Titan-34D “recovery” program. But that’s another story.<\/p>\n

And speaking of stories: yesterday my contributor’s copies of the April\/May issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction<\/em><\/a> arrived, and there on page 72 is my story, “Sensitive, Compartmented.”<\/p>\n

So … space history that relates in part to my own USAF experience, and a new short story. That makes for a pretty good weekend.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twenty-five years ago today — February 12, 1987 — a Titan-IIIB launched from Vandenberg AFB carrying a Satellite Data System (SDS) spacecraft. (Undated Titan-IIIB [34B] launch. Image from Lee Brandon-Cremer via Wikimedia Commons. Almost certainly this was originally a USAF photograph.) According to the National Space Science Data Cnter, SDS \u2026 Continue reading → <\/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":[4],"tags":[289,16,26,11,32,75,24,123,17],"class_list":["post-722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-fiction","tag-asimovs","tag-edwards","tag-launch","tag-space-history","tag-story","tag-thule","tag-titan","tag-usaf","tag-vandenberg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722","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=722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}