1977 in spaceflight

1977 in spaceflight

Launch of Voyager 2 on a Titan IIIE
Orbital launches
First 6 January
Last 27 December
Total 130
Catalogued 124
Rockets
Maiden flights Mu-3H
Tsyklon-3
Retirements Kosmos-2I
Titan IIIE
Manned flights
Orbital 3
Total travellers 6

Spaceflight in 1977 included some important events such as the roll out of the space shuttle orbiter, Voyager 1 and Voyager space probes were launched. NASA received the space shuttle orbiter later named Enterprise, on 14 January. This unpowered sub-orbital space plane was launched off the top of a modified 747 and was flown unmanned until 13 August until a manned crew landed the Enterprise for the first time.

In August and September, the two Voyager spacecraft to the outer planets were launched. Voyager 2, launched on 20 August, went on to fly past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Voyager 1, which was launched on 5 September, flew past Jupiter and Saturn, with a planned flyby of Pluto being cancelled in favour of a closer flyby of Titan.[1]

Launches

Date and time (UTC) Rocket Launch site LSP
Payload Operator Orbit Function Decay (UTC) Outcome
Remarks
16 June
10:51:00		 United StatesDelta 2914 United StatesCape Canaveral LC-17B United States
United StatesGOES 2 NOAA Current: Graveyard
Operational: Geostationary		 Weather In orbit Successful
Retired on 5 May 2001 and moved to a graveyard orbit
20 August
14:29:44		 United StatesTitan IIIE United StatesCape Canaveral LC-41 United States
United StatesVoyager 2 NASA Heliocentric to Galactocentric Planetary In orbit Successful
Operational
Spacecraft flew past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, first spacecraft to visit Uranus and Neptune
5 September
12:56:01		 United StatesTitan IIIE United StatesCape Canaveral LC-41 United States
United StatesVoyager 1 NASA Heliocentric to Galactocentric Planetary In orbit Successful
Operational
Final flight of Titan IIIE, spacecraft flew past Jupiter and Saturn

Deep Space Rendezvous

Date Spacecraft Event Remarks
20 February Viking Orbiter 1 Flyby of Phobos Closest approach: 89 kilometres (55 mi)
October Viking Orbiter 2 Flyby of Deimos

EVAs

Start Date/Time Duration End Time Spacecraft Crew Remarks
19 December
21:36		 1 hour
28 minutes		 23:04 Salyut 6
PE-1		 Soviet UnionGeorgi Grechko (full)
Soviet UnionYuri Romanenko (stand-up)		 First Russian EVA in over 8 years and the first use of the Orlan-D spacesuit.[2] Grechko inspected the front docking port for damage from the failed Soyuz 25 docking and found no damage, while Romanenko assisted from the open hatch.

References
Generic references:

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Hughes, J. (1996) Larrousse Desk Reference Encloypedia London RD press, World Aircraft Information Files (2001) London Aerospace publishing Ltd
  2. ↑ Wade, Mark (2009). "Orlan". Encyclopedia Astronautica web site. Archived from the original on 26 March 2009. Retrieved February 13, 2009.


Timeline of spaceflight
1940s 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949
1950s 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959
1960s 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969
1970s 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979
1980s 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989
1990s 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999
2000s 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
2010s 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 9/12/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.