June 3, 2026 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.
- Orbital images showing the deployment of 2 Qianfan satellites launched on June 1 by the Long March 12b
China’s state-run press did not initially reveal the number of satellites in the payload.
- The story of the recovery in the Pacific of two Nimbus SNAP-19 nuclear generators
Both were lost during a launch failure in May 1968, and were recovered five months later, intact and having leaked no radiation.
- Video of the June 3, 1965 launch of Gemini 4, America’s first multi-day mission
Astronaut Ed White performed a 20-minute spacewalk that same day, which had been quickly added to the flight after Soviet’s Alexei Leonov did a spacewalk six weeks earlier. For the full story and political backdrop behind this mission see chapter 6 in Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Perhaps the small payload (only 2 sats) indicates PRC hedging of bets on the success of the new LM-12B rocket.
1968 was an especially tough year for the U.S. government with nuclear-related accidents. There was also the “broken arrow” incident of the crashed nuclear-armed B-52 near Thule AFB in Greenland; and the loss with all hands of the nuclear-powered USS Scorpion off the Azores. (The Scorpion’s loss was later determined to be not caused by a failure in its nuclear reactor, but the sinking still triggered concerns of nuclear contamination at the time.)
Compared to those accidents, however, the Nimbus reactors ended up being far less messy in resolution.