OTD…July 31 and STS-46

US-French-Saudi crew launched aboard Discovery with a multi-satellite payload

The first crew to inhabit Skylab — Conrad, Weitz and Kerwin — launched today in 1973 for a 28-day mission that successfully made critical repairs, brought the station into operation and conducted solar astronomy, Earth resources and medical experiments.

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.