Nov 15 1961
From The Space Library
Navy Transit IV–B and Traac (Transit Research Attitude Control) satellites launched into orbit by Thor-Able-Star at Atlantic Missile Range.
USAF Discoverer XXXV launched into polar orbit with 300-pound recoverable capsule.
November 15: NASA Bios (biological investigation of space) payload launched by Argo D-8 booster rocket from Pacific Missile Range, but veered sharply off course 57 seconds after launch.
Anniversary of the first flight of the USAF–USN–NASA X-15 powered with the XLR-99 engine (15 flights total to date). A $225 million research program under NASA management, test data indicated that X-15 would exceed its design limits by 100 percent in altitude and 17 percent in speed. The X-15 had already pushed near its design altitude limit of 250,000 feet (reached 217,000 feet October 11, 1961) and passed its maximum design speed of mach 6 (reached mach 6.04 November 9, 1961).
NASA Director of the Office of Manned Space Flight, D. Brainerd Holmes, said, in an interview, that at least 10 Apollo spacecraft would be ordered in the manned lunar vehicle prime systems contract to be awarded in December 1961.
Army launched Speedball rocket successfully from the island of Roi-Namur on Kwajalein atoll in the Southwest Pacific, the first target rocket to be used in Nike-Zeus development.
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