OTD…Aug. 27 and STS-51I

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.

#OTD in 1997…Discovery launched to deploy and later retrieve the CRISTA-SPAS atmospheric research satellite

#OTD in 2007…NASA’s Dawn probe launched to explore the uncharted worlds of Vesta and Ceres in the heart of the asteroid belt.