OTD…Oct. 7 and STS-112

#OTD in 1997…Atlantis launched on the seventh joint docking mission with Russia’s space station Mir

The U.S. launched its first man into space on this date, May 5, 1961, as Alan Shepard rode the Freedom 7 capsule on a 15-minute suborbital flight to 116.5 miles in altitude and 303 miles downrange to splashdown.

#OTD in 2009, shuttle Discovery delivers power payload to space station.