The vertical take-off interceptor would reach 8 km altitude in 53 seconds and then manoeuvre toward the aircraft to be intercepted. The design was developed further by Fieseler as the Fi-166, which retained the rocket takeoff but used a turbojet for a longer cruising flight. The Ministry finally rejected the vertical-takeoff rocket interceptor concept at the end of 1941. The concept was revived at the end of the war as the Bachem Natter.

Martin prepared a plan for flight testing the malfunction detection system (MDS) for the Gemini launch vehicle on development flights of the Titan II weapon system. Gemini Project Office (GPO) had requested Martin to prepare Systems Division and Aerospace approved the plan and won GPO concurrence early in August. This so-call 'piggyback plan' required installing the Gemini MDS in Titan II engines on six Titan II flights to demonstrate its reliability before it was flown on Gemini.

Kamanin select Volynov, Katys, and Yegorov as the prime crew for the Voskhod flight. Komarov, Feoktistov, and Sorokin will be the backup crew. Lazarev will serve as reserve for both crew physician position. The VVS leadership approves the selection. For the first space walk (the flight designated Vykhod at the time), Belyayev, Leonov, Khrunov, and Gorbatko are in training. All want to be first, but Kamanin finds Leonov and Khrunov to have the best analytical minds, to be able to get themselves out of a jam if something goes wrong. He selects Belyayev and Gorbatko to be trained as spacecraft commanders for the missions.

Chertok argues for the necessity of adding one Soyuz to production and using it as an iron bird - a hot mock-up on which avionics and electrical systems can be integrated and tested. Gherman Semenov and Turkov convince Korolev that this cannot be done within the existing schedules.

Tyulin heads a meeting that brings the Soyuz crewing dispute into the open. The opposing crews are represented as follows:

• Soyuz s/n 3: VVS: commander: Komarov; backup Belyayev. MOM: commander: Dolgopolov; backup Grechko. Flight engineer: VVS: open; MOM: Makarov, Backup: Bugrov.
• Soyuz s/n 4: VVS: commander: Bykovsky; backup Nikolayev. MOM: commander: Yeliseyev; backup Anokhin. Flight engineer: VVS: open; MOM: Kubasov, Backup: Volkov.

Kamanin is furious. Mishin and Tyulin think an engineer can be trained to be a spacecraft commander in three months, without passing a flight physical, without being a qualifed pilot, without screening and training on the centrifuge or zero-G aircraft, and without parachute training. They put no value in six years of VVS experience in cosmonaut training. They give no weight to the years of general training, spaceflight experience, and ten months of Soyuz-specific training his candidates have already had. He notes that the United States trains crews for a minimum of one to two years before a flight. Kamanin says this decision will not stand.

Phase B contracts were issued for preliminary design for a space shuttle to two industrial teams - McDonnell Douglas and Martin Marietta; and North American Rockwell and General Dynamics. The specifications were as laid out in the NASA specificaiton on 1 June. In addition, both teams were mandated to study, as a baseline, alternate orbiters, consisting of the MSC-002 straight-wing Faget configuration for the low cross-range alternative, and a delta wing configuration for the high cross-range alternative. The booster configuration, on the other hand, was left up to the contractors.

Engine contracts were let to Pratt and Whitney, Rocketdyne, and Aerojet. The engine specification called for a Lox/LH2 engine with a bell nozzle, capable of gimballing plus/minus 7 deg, producing 188,000 kgf at sea leval and 216,000 kgf at altitude. The booster engines would be equipped with a 6:1 expansion nozzle, and the orbiter with a two-position nozzle to bring the expansion ratio up to 120:1 at altitude. The engine had to throttle between 50% and 115% of the rated thrust (the latter rating for abort engine-out situations). The engine was to be equipped with a digital engine controller and be compact and reusable.

Soyuz 21 with Volynov and Zholobov aboard hard-docked with the station on 6 July 1976 after failure of the Igla system at the last stage of rendezvous. Towards the end of the two month mission an early return to earth was requested due to the poor condition of flight engineer Zholobov (who was suffering from space sickness and psychological problems).

The Large Ballistic Recovery Vehicle (LBRV) was launched from Vandenberg AFB to Kwajalein lagoon on a Minuteman 1 booster. The purpose of the experiment was to recover the external shell of a Mark 12A reentry vehicle intact after reentry in order to assess the performance of staple-fiber heatshields. The LBRV was successfully

Geosynchronous ballistic missile early warning satellite. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 24 deg W in 1994-1995 As of 5 September 2001 located at 170.85 deg W drifting at 0.127 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 10 located at 58.90W drifting at 0.281E degrees per day.

Expedition 15 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineer Clay Anderson this week finished preparing their spacesuits for a planned July 23 spacewalk. Yurchikhin and Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov also continued evaluating the computers on the Russian segment of the International Space Station. Additional Details: here....