posted 08-10-2009 08:57 PM               

Space Cover #17, DOD Manned Orbiting Laboratory

While NASA was getting a lot of public attention for its space program the Department of Defense Manned Orbiting Laboratory or MOL program was underway as well. During an announcement in 1963 the X-20 program was cancelled and the MOL program begun. The MOL program continued until 1969 before it too was cancelled. It was to use a modified Gemini-Titan configuration to create a manned space laboratory and completed an unmanned test flight on November 3, 1966 complete with a recovery force of three ships - the prime recovery ship was the USS LaSalle with secondary ships USS Aucilla and USS Fort Snelling. These are very difficult ship covers to find and are missing in most recovery ship collections. The cover pictured above is for the launch of the USAF Titan 111-C booster from the Eastern Test Range which released the unmanned Gemini spacecraft on a reentry trajectory and inserted a canister containing nine experiments and three satellites into a high, circular orbit. The modified Gemini spacecraft was released at a 125-mile altitude in a test to determine whether the new heat shield with hatch could withstand reentry temperatures. Traveling 17,500 mph, the spacecraft followed a 5,500-mile trajectory, and landed only seven miles off target in the Atlantic.