OTD…April 12 and STS-1 and 51D

The final manned Mercury mission was launched atop an Atlas rocket on this day in 1963 with Gordon Cooper aboard Faith 7 for a 34-hour, 22-orbit flight.

Today in 1996…The launch of Columbia and the ill-fated Tethered Satellite System. Watch the liftoff:

NASA’s Kepler planet-finder began its mission to discover Earth-like worlds orbiting other stars in the galaxy today in 2009, successfully launching aboard a Delta 2 rocket from Cape Canaveral.