Jan 6 1998
From The Space Library
An Athena II rocket carrying Lunar Prospector launched from the renovated U.S. Navy test-launch site, Launch Complex 46, marking the first time that the government-based space transportation agency, Spaceport Florida Authority, had managed a launch from the complex. The rocket carried aboard some of the ashes of geologist Eugene M. Shoemaker, who had died in a car crash in July 1997. Among his many professional accomplishments, the sixty-nine-year-old Shoemaker had selected lunar landing sites and trained Apollo astronauts. On 5 January, NASA had cancelled Athena II's first scheduled launch for safety reasons, after U.S. Air Force radar necessary to track the rocket failed. The unpiloted rocket launched at 9:28 p.m. (EST) and, after 1 hour, propelled the 4-foot (1.2-meter), 650-pound (291-kilogram) Lunar Prospector out of low -Earth orbit toward the Moon.
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