OTD…March 6 and Kepler

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.

The final flight of a Delta 2 rocket, a mainstay of the U.S. launch industry for nearly 30 years, began at 6:02 a.m. PDT (9:02 a.m. EDT; 1302 GMT) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California with NASA’s ICESat 2 Earth science satellite.

#OTD in 1982 the 3rd launch of the space shuttle and in 1996 the 3rd Mir docking missioN