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Surveyor Uncrewed Spaceflight

Surveyor 6 lands on the moon

SurveyorNASA’s robotic explorer Surveyor 6 lands safely on the moon, taking soil samples and pictures from the surface and, for the first time, testing an alpha-scattering surface analysis device of a type that would be included on many later missions to Mars. With the conclusion of Surveyor 6’s operations, the Surveyor probes have completed all of the tasks that were prerequisites to future Apollo manned moon missions. Surveyor 6 successfully lands in the same region of the moon that Surveyors 2 and 4 failed to reach.

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Science & Technology Uncrewed Spaceflight Weather & Climate

ESSA-6

ESSAThe recently-rechristened Environmental Sciences Service Administration launches, with the help of NASA, ESSA-6, the latest in a constellation of weather satellites operated by the former U.S. Weather Bureau. ESSA-6 remains in service until late 1969.

Categories
Uncrewed Spaceflight Zond

Zond 6

Zond 6The Soviet Union launches an unmanned Soyuz 7K-L1 spacecraft, designated Zond 6, on a seven-day flight around the moon and back to Earth. Like Zond 5 before it, Zond 6 carries specimens of Earth animals and plants, but a rupture of the Soyuz pressure vessel results in these specimens being exposed to hard vacuum, resulting in instant death. Furthermore, the spacecraft opens and jettisons its parachutes too early, leaving it to slam into the ground at high speed. With continued glitches plaguing the Zond flights, Soviet mission planners aren’t confident enough in the 7K-L1 capsule to put cosmonauts in it for the next flight.

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Luna Uncrewed Spaceflight

Luna 17 and Lunokhod 1

Luna 17The Soviet Union launches unmanned space probe Luna 17 toward the moon, carrying with it the first automated moon rover, Lunokhod 1. Solar-powered and deployed to the surface via a pair of ramps, the wheeled rover operates for eleven months, more than double the expected operational life span. Unlike Luna 16, Luna 17 and Lunokhod perform their studies of the lunar surface without returning any soil samples to Earth.

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Television

The Bionic Woman: Black Magic

The Bionic WomanThe 21st episode of The Bionic Woman, starring Lindsay Wagner and Richard Anderson, airs on ABC. Vincent Price (Pit And The Pendulum, Time Express), William Windom (My World And Welcome To It, Murder She Wrote), Julie Newmar (Batman), and Abe Vigoda (Barney Miller) guest star.

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Music

Christmas In The Stars

RSO Records, the label responsible for releasing the Star Wars movie soundtracks to date, releases the Star Wars novelty tie-in album Christmas In The Stars. Produced by Meco Menardo (of Star Wars disco cover fame), the album not only answers the age-old question of what to get a Wookiee for Christmas when he already has a comb, but is the first credited studio session work of future rock god Jon Bon Jovi (credited on the LP under his given name, Jon Bongiovi).

More about Star Wars soundtracks in Music Reviews
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Categories
Buran Crewed Spaceflight

Buran Approach & Landing Test 1

BuranWith its own jet engines freeing it from the need for a carrier aircraft, the Buran Analogue test vehicle – the Soviet equivalent of Space Shuttle Enterprise – makes its first approach and landing test, cutting off its jet engines at a predetermined altitude and gliding to an airstrip for a landing. The Buran Analogue will ultimately make more test flights than the Enterprise, continuing to conduct glider landings through 1988.

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Television

Super Force: U-Gene – Part 2

Super ForceThe fifth episode of the science fiction crime drama Super Force is broadcast in syndication in North America, starring Ken Olandt, Larry B. Scott, and Patrick Macnee (The Avengers). Lou Ferrigno (The Incredible Hulk) guest stars.

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Television

Superboy: Paranoia

SuperboyThe 84th episode of the syndicated series Superboy, starring Gerard Christopher and Stacy Haiduk, airs. Adventures Of Superman cast members Noel Neill and Jack Larson guest star.

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Television

Quantum Leap: Deliver Us From Evil

Quantum LeapNBC airs the 79th episode of Donald Bellisario’s science fiction series Quantum Leap, starring Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell. Renee Coleman (A League Of Their Own), Carolyn Seymour (Survivors), and Kristen Cloke (Space: Above And Beyond) guest star.

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