Day: September 25, 1953

Categories
Television

Pathfinders In Space: Luna Bridgehead

  • September 25, 1960

Pathfinders In SpaceBritish broadcaster ABC airs the third episode of Pathfinders In Space, a follow-up series to Target Luna, produced by future Doctor Who creator Sydney Newman. Peter Williams stars in a script written by Malcolm Hulke (Doctor Who) and Eric Paice (Star Maidens). Though the original master tape of this episode was later wiped for reuse, film recordings of all seven episodes would be recovered and released on DVD in the 21st century.

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Categories
Uncrewed Spaceflight Viking

Viking 2 and the frost of Mars

  • September 25, 1977

MarsNASA’s Viking 2 lander confirms a surprising finding first detected in black-and-white images just days earlier: Mars has naturally occurring frost. Scientists try to determine, from images alone, if the frost forms from condensation due to overnight cold (as on Earth), or through some other atmospheric mechanism. But the finding does confirm enough moisture in the atmosphere to condense on the Martian surface, decades before surface water is confirmed on the red planet.

Categories
Television

Quantum Leap: Play Ball

  • September 25, 1991

Quantum LeapNBC airs the 54th episode of Donald Bellisario’s science fiction series Quantum Leap, starring Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell. Neal McDonough (Star Trek: First Contact, Arrow, Legends Of Tomorrow) guest stars.

This series is not yet fully chronicled in the LogBook. You could help change that.

Categories
Atlantis Crewed Spaceflight Mir Space Shuttle

STS-86: seventh Shuttle-Mir docking

  • September 25, 1997

Space ShuttleSpace Shuttle Atlantis lifts off on an 11-day mission to dock with the Mir space station. In addition to routine supplies, replacement parts are brought to Mir to swap out with equipment damaged during the various incidents and accidents endured by Mir Expedition 23. The first-ever joint American/Russian spacewalk is conducted to undertake some of the repair activity and to try to find the location of the Spektr module hull breach. Aboard Atlantis for her 19th flight are Commander James Wetherbee, Pilot Michael Bloomfield, and mission specialists Vladimar Titov, Scott Parazynski, Jean-Loup Chretien, Wendy Lawrence and David Wolf. Wolf remains on Mir to join the Expedition 24 crew, while Mir crewmember Michael Foale returns to Earth aboard Atlantis, having served 145 unusually eventful days in space.

Categories
Science & Technology

Impact in Siberia

  • September 25, 2002

Destruction!An object from space, possibly as much as 300 feet in diameter, explodes in mid-air at night over the mountainous region near Bodaybo, a village in Irkutsk, Siberia, showering the land below with its fragments and destroying nearly 40 square miles of forest. Neither debris nor the actual “impact” site of the airborne explosion are discovered until 2003, when an expedition discovers the destroyed forest land, comparing the sight to the infamous 1908 Tunguska impact zone. Traces of tritium and slightly radioactive cesium and cobalt are discovered surrounding the impact area, possibly indicating a comet nucleus that broke up in Earth’s atmosphere. Despite the size of the object, it was not detected before its near-impact with Earth.