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Tales Of Tomorrow: The Diamond Lens
The 24th episode of ABC’s science fiction anthology series, Tales Of Tomorrow, airs on ABC, with each episode’s opening titles proclaiming that the series is produced “in cooperation with the Science-Fiction League of America”, a collective of sci-fi writers including Isaac Asimov and Theodore Sturgeon among its members. This episode is no longer in the archives and may be lost.
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ABC airs the 85th episode of the supernatural anthology series One Step Beyond, hosted and directed by John Newland. Roger Delgado (Doctor Who) guest stars.
The 113th episode of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone airs on CBS. Steve Forrest and Jacqueline Scott star in an episode written by Serling.
The 17th episode of Doctor Who airs on the BBC. This is part four of the story now collectively known as 
British broadcaster ABC airs the 77th episode of the spy-fi series The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Honor Blackman. 
The tenth episode of Larry Cohen’s science fiction series The Invaders, starring Roy Thinnes and produced by Quinn Martin’s QM Productions, premieres on ABC. William Smithers (Peyton Place, Dallas), Michael Rennie (The Day The Earth Stood Still), and Dabney Coleman (9 To 5, WarGames) guest star.
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The European Space Agency’s unmanned Giotto space probe makes its closest approach to the nucleus of Halley’s Comet, coming within 400 miles of the comet’s core and taking unprecedented photos that help scientists refine their theories about cometary composition and formation. Giotto pays for the close encounter by taking a beating: its instruments register significant dust impacts, and one impact event jars the spacecraft off of its axis, coming dangerously close to breaking Giotto’s radio contact with Earth and forcing the vehicle to stabilize itself with thrusters. After its encounter with the comet, Giotto falls into a long, looping orbit around Earth, where it will be reactivated to study another comet years later.
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The week-long national syndication window opens for 
NBC airs the 26th episode of Donald Bellisario’s science fiction series Quantum Leap, starring Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell. Shari Headley guest stars.
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The movie-length first episode of RoboCop: The Series premieres in syndication in the U.S., starring Richard Eden, Yvette Nipar, Blu Mankuma, and Andrea Roth. Based loosely on characters from the 1987 movie of the same name, the pilot is based on an unused script for a potential movie sequel, but the series has a decidedly more family-friendly, less gory tone. Cliff De Young guest stars as Dr. Cray Z. Mollardo.
The week-long national syndication window opens for 
An American astronaut lifts off aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft for the first time ever with the launch of Soyuz TM-21, a mission to the Mir space station. Cosmonauts Vladimir Dezhurov and Gennady Strekalov are joined by astronaut Norman Thagard aboard Mir, where they remain for 115 days. During that time, they witness the arrival of the Spektr module, a new addition to the station, and they ultimately return to Earth aboard space shuttle Atlantis in July 1995; Soyuz TM-21 remains at the station, where a future Mir crew uses it to return to Earth. During the Atlantis mission, a new record is set for the number of humans in space, as the station and shuttle crews add up to 13 people in orbit at once.
Showtime airs the 53rd episode of The Outer Limits, a revival of the 1960s science fiction anthology series. 
Fox airs the 41st episode of Tracy Torme’s alternate-universe science fiction series Sliders, starring Jerry O’Connell, Sabrina Lloyd, Cleavant Derricks, and Kari Wuhrer. Dawnn Lewis (Star Trek: Lower Decks) guest stars.
NASA’s NEAR (Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous) unmanned spacecraft is officially renamed NEAR-Shoemaker, honoring Eugene Shoemaker, discoverer of multiple asteroids and comets, who died in 1997. Shoemaker had also put his geology skills to use in training Apollo astronauts after a medical diagnosis prevented him from joining the astronaut corps himself. NEAR-Shoemaker continues to orbit asteroid 433 Eros.
The fifth episode of the science fiction comedy series The Strangerers is broadcast on Sky One, created and written by Rob Grant (Red Dwarf), starring Mark Williams and Jack Docherty. Tracy-Ann Oberman guest stars.
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The European Space Agency’s unmanned Mars Trace Gas Orbiter, nicknamed ExoMars, lifts off via a Russian Proton rocket on a course for Mars. Carrying a small lander named Schiaparelli (named after the Italian astronomer who was instrumental in early mapping of Martian surface features via telescope), ExoMars is scheduled to arrive at the red planet in October 2016, deliver the Schiaparelli lander, and then enter orbit to search for traces and origins of methane in the Martian atmosphere, to determine if the presence of that gas – usually associated with biological activity on Earth – is geochemical in nature, or is derived from another source. Plans then call for ExoMars to join the fleet of artificial satellites relaying communications from current and future Mars-exploring rovers and landers to Earth through the 2020s.
The CW airs the 30th episode of Legends Of Tomorrow, starring Arthur Darvill, Brandon Routh, Caity Lotz and Victor Garber. 
The CW airs the 62nd episode of The Flash, a modern-day reboot of DC Comics’ superhero starring Grant Gustin. 
Widely regarded as one of the 20th and 21st centuries’ finest minds in the fields of theoretical physics and cosmology, Professor Stephen Hawking dies at the age of 76, having suffered from ALS (better known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease) for over 50 years. He far outlived the few years he was expected to live when he was diagnosed in 1963. In that time, he co-authored a 1970 paper which referred back to Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity to lend great credibility to the then-new (and not widely accepted) theory of the universe’s origins in a “big bang”. Later that same year he began working on research that would eventually lead to the theory that black holes would emit a signature radiation, dubbed Hawking radiation, though those emissions had yet to be observed directly at the time of Hawking’s death. His best-selling 1988 book, “A Brief History Of Time”, propelled Hawking (and his remarkable survival story) into the public eye, though by this time he was wheelchair-bound and reliant on a speech synthesizer to communicate with others.
The 216th episode of Chris Carter’s modern-day science fiction series The X-Files airs on Fox, starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. Fiona Vroom (Star Trek Continues) and Jere Burns (Max Headroom) guest star.