Day: March 25, 1960

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Columbia Crewed Spaceflight Space Shuttle

Columbia under construction

  • March 25, 1975

ColumbiaConstruction begins on Space Shuttle Orbiter Vehicle 102 (OV-102 for short), the shuttle orbiter that NASA intends to launch as early as 1977. But OV-102 encounters the inherent pitfalls of being the first of its kind: years of delays are ahead, with many of the delays linked to the complicated system of protective thermal tiles designed to bear the brunt of the shuttle’s punishing re-entry through the atmosphere. (The test orbiter, later named Enterprise, is never intended for spaceflight, so it only has to conform to the shape and weight of a returning shuttle for landing tests, and therefore it doesn’t face the same hurdles.) OV-102’s first flight won’t take place until 1981, leaving a six-year gap between manned American spaceflights; during this period OV-102 will be named Columbia.

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Galileo Uncrewed Spaceflight

Galileo and the strange chemistry of Europa

  • March 25, 1999

EuropaNASA scientists announce a startling find on one of Jupiter’s moons: a chemical which must be manufactured on Earth occurs naturally on the surface of Europa. The Galileo orbiter detects naturally-occurring hydrogren peroxide on the surface of the icy moon (a surface which most planetary scientists now believe covers an ocean of water or “slush” just beneath the crust), probably caused by the constant bombardment of radiation-charged particles from Jupiter itself. The hydrogen peroxide on Europa is also found to be very short-lived, quickly breaking down into gaseous oxygen and hydrogen.

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Crewed Spaceflight International Space Station Soyuz

Soyuz TMA-12M

  • March 25, 2014

Soyuz TMA-12MPart of the 39th full-time crew of the International Space Station lifts off from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard Soyuz TMA-12M. Aleksandr Skvortsov, Oleg Artemyev and Steven Swanson take up residence on the ISS for 169 days, becoming part of the Expedition 39 and 40 crews. This crew returns to Earth in September 2014 aboard the same vehicle.