February 11


11 February 1970


Artist's impression of the Ohsumi satellite. Credit: JAXA

Ohsumi, Japan's first satellite, was launched on February 11, 1970 at 04:25 UTC on a Lambda 4S-5 rocket from the Kagoshima Space Center by Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science, University of Tokyo. This made Japan the fourth country, after the USSR, the United States, and France, to launch a satellite into orbit using its own rocket.

Ohsumi satellite during prelaunch preparations. Credit: JAXA

   The Ohsumi satellite was a small observatory, with a mass of 24 kg, carrying five experiments designed to make ionospheric observations of temperature and density, measurements of solar emission, and measurements of energetic particles. A 500-km circular orbit was intended, but an elliptical orbit was achieved, with a perigee 350 km and an apogee 5,140 km. The satellite was a regular 26-sided polygonal prism with a circumscribed radius of 75 cm. The batteries were powered by 5184 solar cells mounted on the satellite body. Average power consumption was 10.3 W.

   About two and a half hours after the launch, a radio signal from Ohsumi was received confirming its first revolution around the Earth. The radio signal level gradually fell and the next day, February 12, during its 6th revolution, it became very faint. The signal could no longer be detected during the 7th revolution. It is believed that the signal of Ohsumi was lost 14 to 15 hours after launch, probably caused by rapid reduction of power capacity because of higher than expected temperatures. The satellite continued to orbit the Earth until August 2, 2003, when it reentered the atmosphere.

Lambda 4S-5 rocket before launch. Credit: JAXA

Launch of the Lambda 4S-5 rocket with the Ohsumi satellite. Credit: JAXA



© 2026, Andrew Mirecki



11 February 1997


STS-82 crew. Left to right - Front: Kenneth Bowersox, Steven Hawley, Scott Horowitz; Back: Joseph Tanner, Gregory Harbaugh, Mark Lee, Steven Smith. Credit: NASA

STS-82, the second Space Shuttle Servicing Mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, was launched on February 11, 1997 at 8:55:17 UTC. Discovery's seven-member crew completed servicing and upgrading of the Hubble Space Telescope during four planned EVAs, later performing a fifth unscheduled space walk to repair insulation on the telescope. Two new scientific instruments were installed, replacing two outdated instruments.

Mission data:

Mission name: STS-82 / HST SM-2

Crew: 
Kenneth D. Bowersox – Commander
Scott J. Horowitz – Pilot
Joseph R. Tanner – Mission Specialist 1
Steven A. Hawley – Mission Specialist 2
Gregory J. Harbaugh – Mission Specialist 3
Mark C. Lee – Mission Specialist 4
Steven L. Smith – Mission Specialist 5

Spacecraft: OV-103 Discovery
Launch vehicle: Space Shuttle
Launch site: KSC, LC-39A
Launch date and time: 11 February, 1997, 08:55:17 UTC
Landing date and time: 21 February, 1997, 08:32:26 UTC
Landing site: KSC, SLF Runway 15
Flight duration: 9d 23h 37m 09s

STS-82: Discovery launches on Hubble Servicing Mission 2. Credit: NASA/KSC

   STS 82 was the 22nd flight of the Discovery orbiter, the 82nd shuttle mission, and the 16th night launch of the shuttle. Its objective was to repair, replace, and/or update the instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope. During several days of EVA, the crew replaced a failed Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS), swapped one of the reel-to-reel tape recorders with a solid-state recorder, and exchanged two of the original instruments, the Goddard High-Resolution Spectrograph (GHRS) and the Faint Object Spectrograph (FOS), with two new instruments, the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) and the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS). In addition to this planned work, astronauts discovered that some of the insulation around the light shield portion of the telescope had degraded and attached several thermal insulation blankets to correct the problem.

EVA 3 activity on Flight Day 6 to service the Hubble Space Telescope. Astronaut Steven L. Smithworks near the foot restraint of the Remote Manipulator System. Credit: NASA

Gregory J. Harbaugh (left) and Joseph R.Tanner (right) during Mobile Foot Restraint exchange. 
Credit:NASA/ESA


EVA 4 activity on Flight Day 7. Astronaut Joseph R. Tanner, STS-82 mission specialist, is backdropped against Earth's limb and a sunburst effect in this 35mm frame exposed by astronaut Gregory J. Harbaugh, mission specialist, his extravehicular activity (EVA) crew mate. Harbaugh's torso is reflected in Tanner's helmet visor. A checklist of tasks is attached to Tanner's left arm for quick reference. Credit: NASA


© 2026, Andrew Mirecki



11 February 2003

Radar image of asteroid Atira. Credit: Arecibo Observatory/NASA/NSF

A near-Earth asteroid (163693) Atira, the first asteroid found to have its orbit entirely confined within Earth's orbit, was discovered on February 11, 2003, by astronomers with the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research at Lincoln Laboratory's Experimental Test Site near Socorro, New Mexico. A group of near-Earth objects (Atira asteroids) is named after it.

   Atira is a S-type binary asteroid orbiting the Sun at a distance of 0.502–0.980 au once every 233 days. Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.32 and an inclination of 26° with respect to the ecliptic. The primary component of the binary, with a diameter of 4.8 ± 0.5 kilometers, is orbited at a distance of about 6 km by a moon that measures 1.0±0.3 km. Atira has an Earth minimum orbit intersection distance of 0.2059 au (30,800,000 km).

   Atira asteroids, also known as interior-Earth objects (IEOs), are Near-Earth objects whose orbits are entirely confined within Earth's orbit; that is, their orbit has an aphelion (farthest point from the Sun) smaller than Earth's perihelion (nearest point to the Sun), which is 0.983 astronomical units. As of February 2026, there are 40 known Atiras.

The orbit of the asteroid (163693) Atira. Credit: NASA Solar System Dynamics



© 2026, Andrew Mirecki



11 February 2015


Artist's rendering of DSCOVR satellite. Credit: NOAA/NASA

Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), a joint mission between NASA, NOAA, and the USAF, was launched on February 11, 2015, on a Falcon 9 v1.1 launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral, SLC-40. The satellite entered orbit around the Sun–Earth L1 point, about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, where it has a continuous view of the Sun and the sunlit side of Earth. DSCOVR primary mission is to provide data on variations in the solar wind, provide early warning on coronal mass ejections, observe Earth climate changes, and provide images of the sunlit side of Earth.

   The spacecraft has a launch mass of approximately 570 kg. The main science instrument sets are the Sun-observing Plasma Magnetometer (PlasMag) and the Earth-observing NIST Advanced Radiometer (NISTAR) and Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC).

   On July 16, 2025, DSCOVR suffered a software bus anomaly, which put it offline without an estimated date for recovery. On October 12, 2025, the amateur-operated Dwingeloo Radio Observatory received signals again, after which AMSAT-DL successfully downloaded EPIC images on October 23, 2025.

The first image taken by NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) on July 6, 2015, shows the full sunlit Earth from 1,475,207 km, centered on the Americas. Credit: NASA


The Moon transiting Earth on July 16, 2015, seen from DSCOVR. Credit: NASA/NOAA/Ian Regan


© 2026, Andrew Mirecki

INDEX PAGE
CALENDAR PAGE

Komentarze

Prześlij komentarz

Popularne posty z tego bloga

Obraz
January 1    1 January 1801 A painting of Giuseppe Piazzi pointing to Ceres, his discovery in the sky. In the collection of Palermo Astronomical Observatory. On January 1, 1801, Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi (1746–1826)  from the observatory in Palermo, Sicily, discovered the first known asteroid, a dwarf planet (1) Ceres. Originally considered a planet, it was reclassified as an asteroid in the 1850s after the discovery of dozens of other objects in similar orbits. In 2006, it was reclassified again as a dwarf planet.    Piazzi spotted the object while conducting observations for his star catalogue. A few months later he wrote:    "...on the evening of the 1st of January of the current year, together with several other stars, I sought for the 87th of the Catalogue of the Zodiacal stars of Mr la ...
Czytaj więcej
Obraz
  January 2    2 January 1920   Isaac Asimo v Prolific science fiction writer Isaac Asimov was born in Petrovichi, Russian SFSR, on an unknown date between October 4, 1919, and January 2, 1920, inclusive. He celebrated his birthday on January 2. Asimov was brought to the United States with his family in 1923, and became a US citizen in 1928. He obtained his undergraduate degree from Columbia University in 1939, and took a Doctor of Philosophy degree in chemistry in 1948. In 1949 he joined the Boston University School of Medicine, where he became associate professor of biochemistry. He left the position in 1958 and became a full-time writer.    Asimov was central to science fiction’s Golden Age. Across a prolific career spanning five decades, he produced nearly 500 books, but it is his science fiction — particularly the "Foundation" series and his robot stories — that secured his place in literary history.     Asimov's robot stori...
Czytaj więcej
Obraz
  January 19  19 January 2006 Artist's concept of New Horizons. Credit: JHUAPL/SwRI New Horizons, the first spacecraft to explore the dwarf planet Pluto, was launched from Cape Canaveral at 19:00 UT on January 19, 2006, on an Atlas V 551 booster with a Star 48B third stage directly into an interplanetary trajectory. New Horizons flew by Jupiter in February 2007, Pluto on July 14, 2015, and the Kuiper belt object (486958) Arrokoth on January 1, 2019. It is the fifth space probe to achieve the escape velocity needed to leave the Solar System.     The primary objectives of the mission are to characterize the global geology and morphology and map the surface composition of Pluto and Charon and characterize the neutral atmosphere of Pluto and its escape rate. Other objectives include studying the time variability of Pluto's surface and atmosphere, imaging Pluto and Charon in stereo, mapping the terminators and composition...
Czytaj więcej