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CBS airs the 31st episode of a revival of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. Susan Blakely and William Allen Young star in an episode comprised of two short stories, The Card and The Junction.
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A&M Records releases the Supertramp compilation album Classics, Volume 9 – Supertramp as part of the label’s 25th anniversary Classics series. 
Astronomers both amateur and professional glimpse the first supernova to occur in the age of modern science. Given the name Supernova 1987A, the huge burst of light – visible to the naked eye in Earth’s southern hemisphere by the early summer months of 1987 before it begins fading out – is a collapsing star on the edge of the Tarantula Nebula. The star previously seen in that location is a blue supergiant, which wasn’t a likely candidate to go nova according to the existing theories of stellar evolution at the time. In the 1990s, the slowly expanding ring of debris rushing outward from Supernova 1987A becomes a favorite observation target for the Hubble Space Telescope. The supernova is more than 150,000 light years away from Earth’s solar system in the direction of the Large Magellenic Cloud.
NOAA’s GOES-7 Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral into a geosynchronous orbit now designated GOES-EAST to monitor weather patterns over the United States. Originally intended for a 1986 launch, GOES-7 has been kept on the ground by the investigation into the destruction just after launch of its predecessor, GOES-G. GOES-7 will become the first of the GOES satellites to operate in both the GOES-EAST and GOES-WEST orbits, and will be retired from active weather-watching duty in 1999, becoming a communications relay satellite until it is decommissioned in 2012.
A victory lap after its successful study of Halley’s Comet in 1985 and 1986, the Pioneer Venus Orbiter uses its unique position at the solar system’s second planet to observe another comet, the recently-discovered Comet Wilson. Spotted for the first time only the year before, little is known about Comet Wilson, a lack of data that Pioneer Venus helps to correct by imaging the comet in the ultraviolet portion of the spectrum. Pioneer Venus will also study two other comets later in 1987.
The 41st episode of Steven Spielberg’s anthology series Amazing Stories airs on NBC. Bob Balaban (Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, 2010: The Year We Make Contact) guest stars in an episode co-written and directed by Paul Bartel.
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The 42nd episode of Steven Spielberg’s anthology series Amazing Stories airs on NBC. Adam Ant guest stars.
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EMI Records releases the Pseudo Echo album Long Plays ’83-’87, gathering extended mixes of the storied Australian group’s various singles.
The 43rd episode of Steven Spielberg’s anthology series Amazing Stories airs on NBC.
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Patrick Troughton, the first actor to inherit the lead role of Doctor Who from another actor (and still one of the best-loved incarnations of the time-traveling Doctor), dies at the age of 67 on the second day of a science fiction convention in Columbus, Georgia. Despite worries about a persistent heart condition (he had already suffered heart attacks in 1978 and 1984), Troughton had made the trip to America against his doctor’s advice, suffering a fatal third heart attack after breakfast. His final TV appearance, the series Knights Of God, will air later in the year, having actually been filmed in 1985.
The Soviet Union launches the first Kvant module to join with the Mir core module. An expansion originally devised for the Salyut 7 space station, Kvant provides additional working space and life support systems aboard Mir as, well as a gyroscopic stablization system to keep the station properly oriented without the constant use of engines and fuel. Years later, the basic Kvant design will be developed further in Russia’s contributions to the International Space Station.
The first episode of the American-made Max Headroom series premieres on ABC, starring Matt Frewer and Amanda Pays. (This is the the American-made drama series, not the music video/talk show series featuring the same character.) Charles Rocket (Saturday Night Live) guest stars.
The 44th episode of Steven Spielberg’s anthology series Amazing Stories airs on NBC.
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President Reagan approves a $10,000,000,000 budget for a redesigned, pared-down Space Station Freedom, to be constructed over sixteen Space Shuttle launches beginning in 1994, with Freedom not being fully operational until 1996. To the stern disapproval of the scientific community, almost all laboratory space has been removed from Freedom’s design proposal, leaving only Japan and the European Space Agency to provide lab space. Without the space for American astronauts to conduct scientific experiments, Space Station Freedom’s new primary mission is quite clearly stated to be to catch the American space program up with, or surpass, the Soviet Union’s long-duration space missions aboard the Mir space station. While the Preisdent approves of the slimmed-down station design, NASA must now run the gauntlet to get Congressional approval to proceed.
The second episode of the American-made Max Headroom series premieres on ABC, starring Matt Frewer and Amanda Pays. (This is the the American-made drama series, not the music video/talk show series featuring the same character.) Howard Sherman and Wortham Krimmer guest star.
The 45th and final episode of Steven Spielberg’s anthology series Amazing Stories airs on NBC. Laraine Newman and Weird Al Yankovic guest star in an episode directed by Tobe Hooper. The series will be briefly revived by Spielberg in the 21st century.
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Warner Bros. Records releases the album Tango In The Night by Fleetwood Mac, featuring the singles “Big Love”, “Little Lies”, and “Seven Wonders”. This is the final studio album by the lineup that recorded Rumours and Tusk; Lindsey Buckingham goes his own way following this album.
The third episode of the American-made Max Headroom series premieres on ABC, starring Matt Frewer and Amanda Pays. (This is the the American-made drama series, not the music video/talk show series featuring the same character.) W. Morgan Sheppard and Concetta Tomei guest star.
The fourth episode of the American-made Max Headroom series premieres on ABC, starring Matt Frewer and Amanda Pays. (This is the the American-made drama series, not the music video/talk show series featuring the same character.) W. Morgan Sheppard and Concetta Tomei guest star.
The fifth episode of the American-made Max Headroom series premieres on ABC, starring Matt Frewer and Amanda Pays. (This is the the American-made drama series, not the music video/talk show series featuring the same character.) Robert O’Reilly guest stars.
NASA has to borrow some of its own spare parts back from the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum to begin engineering mock-up work on the unmanned Venus radar mapping probe Magellan. As JPL works on modifications to a backup central bus component left over from the Voyager program, a physical copy of that bus from an engineering backup of the Voyager spacecraft is loaned back to JPL, shipped to Pasadena from Washington, D.C. (This loan saves JPL the trouble of building another replica of the bus, the central hub of the spacecraft containing its computer and electrical systems, which could add significant cost to the preparations.) The real Magellan, due to be launched soon after the currently grounded space shuttle program resumes, will cut costs by incorporating unused backup equipment from its predecessors, including a Voyager central bus and high-gain antenna, a medium-gain antenna spare from the Mariner missions to Mars, and a Galileo data handling system.
Virgin Records releases the Roy Orbison album In Dreams: The Greatest Hits, which consists entirely of new recordings of Orbison’s most popular songs (since the original masters are in legal limbo due to the bankruptcy of Monument Records, Orbison’s former label); the compilation is timed to land near the release of the David Lynch film Blue Velvet, which used “In Dreams” in a pivotal scene.
The sixth episode of the American-made Max Headroom series premieres on ABC, starring Matt Frewer and Amanda Pays. (This is the the American-made drama series, not the music video/talk show series featuring the same character.) W. Morgan Sheppard and Concetta Tomei guest star. This is the last episode aired until fall 1987.
CBS airs the 33rd episode of a revival of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. Rob Knepper and Heidi Kozak star in an episode comprised of three short stories, Joy Ride, Helter Skelter, and Private Channel.
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Pocket Books releases the in-universe reference book Star Trek: Mr. Scott’s Guide To The Enterprise, with text and illustrations by Lora Johnson. The book is a guide to the fictional lore and workings of the movie-era version of the starship Enterprise.
The first episode of Chris Boucher’s futuristic police drama Star Cops premieres on the BBC, complete with a theme song by Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues (more of which is heard in this episode’s extended intro than any other episode of the series). Andrew Secombe (Star Wars prequels) guest stars. 
CBS airs the 34th episode of a revival of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. Gina Gershon (Showgirls, Tripping The Rift, Riverdale), Martin Balsam (The Six Million Dollar Man), Jenny Agutter (Logan’s Run), Tim Russ (Star Trek: Voyager), and Dennis Haskins (Saved By The Bell) star in two half-hour stories combined to fill an hour time slot, as CBS has already cancelled the series (but will revive it under a different production team to produce more episodes to make the Twilight Zone revival viable for syndication).
Fox airs the first episode of Werewolf, created by Frank Lupo (The A-Team) and featuring makeup effects by Rick Baker. John J. York and Lance LeGault star; Chuck Connors (The Rifleman) guest stars.
The second episode of Chris Boucher’s futuristic police drama Star Cops premieres on the BBC. Trevor Cooper makes his first appearance as regular Star Cop Colin Devis in this episode.
CBS airs the 35th episode of a revival of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. Jennifer Rubin and James Whitmore Jr. (Baa Baa Black Sheep) star in an episode comprised of two short stories, Song Of The Younger World and The Girl I Married. Though the series ends its run on CBS’ prime time schedule at this point, CBS spends over a year retooling the series and moving its production base to Canada to produce a further 30 episodes to air in first-run syndication, bolstering the show’s episode count and its future prospects as a syndicated show.
This series is not fully chronicled in the LogBook. You could join theLogBook team and write this guide or support the webmaster’s efforts to expand the site.
More about The Twilight Zone in the LogBook and theLogBook.com Store
The Twilight Zone now streaming on Paramount Plus