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Crewed Spaceflight Mir

Kristall module docks at Mir

Mir / KristallThe Soviet Union launches the Kristall module, whose pre-programmed systems bring it to the Mir space station for an automated docking. With facilities for material science experiments, additional gyroscopic stabilizers to keep Mir properly oriented, and other equipment, Kristall also features an extended docking port intended to allow the Soviet-made Buran shuttle to dock at Mir. In time, that docking port will allow a space shuttle to berth at Mir… but not the one its designers anticipate.

This is the last expansion made to Mir prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the last new module to arrive for five years.

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Video Games

Nintendo, Sony part ways over peripheral

Mike vs PS1After three years of joint development on a CD-ROM peripheral for Nintendo’s new video game system, Sony and Nintendo part ways, leaving the public and the press confused over what will happen next. Hours after Nintendo unveils the specs and price point for its Super Nintendo Entertainment System to the press, Sony announces that it will release a new system called the Play Station in 1992, which will play both SNES cartridges and disc-based systems made by Sony. Of course, Sony’s development curve isn’t that simple, and the first Sony video game system won’t arrive until a few years – and a whole generation of computer game hardware – later.

More about Playstation in Phosphor Dot Fossils

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Television

Sliders: Greatfellas

SlidersFox airs the 19th episode of Tracy Torme’s alternate-universe science fiction series Sliders, starring Jerry O’Connell, John Rhys Davies, Sabrina Lloyd, and Cleavant Derricks. Mel Torme (father of series creator Tracy Torme) and Donnelly Rhodes (Battlestar Galactica) guest star.

More about Sliders in the LogBook
Sliders now streaming on Amazon Prime
This series is not yet fully chronicled in the LogBook. You could help change that.

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Star Trek Television

Star Trek: DS9: What You Leave Behind

Star Trek: Deep Space NineThe week-long national syndication window opens for the 173rd episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. This episode concludes both the seventh season and the series as a whole, wrapping up most of the show’s major storylines and paying off developments in the previous eight episodes. Louise Fletcher and James Darren guest star.

More about Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in the LogBook and theLogBook.com Store
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine now streaming on Paramount Plus

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Crewed Spaceflight Discovery International Space Station Space Shuttle

STS-124

Space ShuttleSpace Shuttle Discovery is launched on the 123rd shuttle flight, a two-week mission to install a major laboratory module to the International Space Station. The pressurized module of Japan’s Kibo laboratory joins the unpressurized section installed on a previous flight, complete with its own robotic arm controlled inside. Aboard Discovery for her 35th flight are Commander Mark Kelly, Pilot Ken Ham, mission specialists Karen Nyberg, Ron Garan and Mike Fossum, and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, who remains on the International Space Station. Station astronaut Garrett Reisman returns to Earth aboard Discovery.

Categories
Crewed Spaceflight Dream Chaser

Dream Chaser test vehicle on the runway

Dream ChaserA full-sized structural test article of Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Dream Chaser spacecraft begins “tow tests” at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, verifying the vehicle’s handling on landing gear after touching down. Drop tests and glide tests are scheduled for later in 2013, though all such tests will be completely automated. Sierra Nevada Corporation also provides the main engines for Virgin Galactica’s SpaceShipTwo, and had already built the engines that propelled SpaceShipOne toward its X Prize-winning flight. The Dream Chaser design is based on an unused study vehicle, HL-20, studied by NASA in the 1980s and ’90s, which was in turn based upon a Soviet-era test vehicle called BOR4.