NASA Number schemes for crewed flight

Was thinking about this earlier today.

Mercury had no real numbering system that I'm aware of (I'm sure it did, I'm
just not aware of it).
So you had Faith 7, Hope 7, etc.

Gemini basically used roman numerals.
Gemini VI, X, etc.

Apollo had 3 that I'm aware.
Apollo 4, 6, 8, etc.
AS-201, 204, etc
SA-201, 204, etc (i.e. the same as above, but different centers put a
different emphasis on the "lead" vehicle")

Shuttle:
STS-1, 2, etc
STS-64B

What else?

On Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:40:18 -0500, "Greg \(Strider\) Moore"
wrote:

Was thinking about this earlier today.

Mercury had no real numbering system that I'm aware of (I'm sure it did, I'm
just not aware of it).
So you had Faith 7, Hope 7, etc.

Mercury had a "Mercury (Booster) Number" designation.

Shepard flew Mercury-Redstone 3. Grissom flew MR-4.
Glenn flew Mercury-Atlas 6, Carpenter MA-7, Schirra MA-8 and Cooper
MA-9.

They named their own spacecraft: "Freedom 7", "Liberty Bell 7",
"Friendship 7", "Aurora 7", "Sigma 7", and "Faith 7". Note there was
no "Hope 7", Slayton's canceled flight would have been "Delta 7",
Shepard's second flight would have been "Freedom 7 II".

Gemini basically used roman numerals.
Gemini VI, X, etc.

Apollo had 3 that I'm aware.
Apollo 4, 6, 8, etc.
AS-201, 204, etc
SA-201, 204, etc (i.e. the same as above, but different centers put a
different emphasis on the "lead" vehicle")

And the unnumbered Apollo-Soyuz flight.

Shuttle:
STS-1, 2, etc
STS-64B

Vandenberg Shuttle flights were evidently also called STS-1V, STS-2V,
etc.

Brian

"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
...

On Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:40:18 -0500, "Greg \(Strider\) Moore"
wrote:

Was thinking about this earlier today.

Mercury had no real numbering system that I'm aware of (I'm sure it did,
I'm
just not aware of it).
So you had Faith 7, Hope 7, etc.

Mercury had a "Mercury (Booster) Number" designation.

Shepard flew Mercury-Redstone 3. Grissom flew MR-4.
Glenn flew Mercury-Atlas 6, Carpenter MA-7, Schirra MA-8 and Cooper
MA-9.


Right. I knew that as I was typing and then forgot about it. :-)


They named their own spacecraft: "Freedom 7", "Liberty Bell 7",
"Friendship 7", "Aurora 7", "Sigma 7", and "Faith 7". Note there was
no "Hope 7", Slayton's canceled flight would have been "Delta 7",
Shepard's second flight would have been "Freedom 7 II".

Yeah. Shades of NCC-1701-A :-)


Gemini basically used roman numerals.
Gemini VI, X, etc.

Apollo had 3 that I'm aware.
Apollo 4, 6, 8, etc.
AS-201, 204, etc
SA-201, 204, etc (i.e. the same as above, but different centers put a
different emphasis on the "lead" vehicle")

And the unnumbered Apollo-Soyuz flight.


Good point. And of course is is Skylab 1-4 or Skylab + 1-3 or some
variation there of. ;-)

Shuttle:
STS-1, 2, etc
STS-64B

Vandenberg Shuttle flights were evidently also called STS-1V, STS-2V,
etc.

I've seen that in a few places, but nothing like the STS-XY-A system (and
note I mistyped above, this system had STS-X1-A or STS-X2-A possibilities,
the 1 or 2 of course referring to KSC or Vandenberg)



Brian



--
Greg D. Moore President Green Mountain Software
http://www.greenms.com
Help honor our WWII Veterans: http://www.honorflight.org/
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.

On Nov 29, 5:09*pm, "Greg \(Strider\) Moore"
wrote:
"Brian Thorn" *wrote in message

...







On Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:40:18 -0500, "Greg \(Strider\) Moore"
wrote:

Was thinking about this earlier today.

Mercury had no real numbering system that I'm aware of (I'm sure it did,
I'm
just not aware of it).
So you had Faith 7, Hope 7, etc.

Mercury had a "Mercury (Booster) Number" designation.

Shepard flew Mercury-Redstone 3. Grissom flew MR-4.
Glenn flew Mercury-Atlas 6, Carpenter MA-7, Schirra MA-8 and Cooper
MA-9.

Right. *I knew that as I was typing and then forgot about it. :-)

They named their own spacecraft: "Freedom 7", "Liberty Bell 7",
"Friendship 7", "Aurora 7", "Sigma 7", and "Faith 7". Note there was
no "Hope 7", Slayton's canceled flight would have been "Delta 7",
Shepard's second flight would have been "Freedom 7 II".

Yeah. *Shades of NCC-1701-A :-)



Gemini basically used roman numerals.
Gemini VI, X, etc.


Sorry, but I REALLY dislike Roman Numerals. They're too damn
pretentous, quickly become unwieldy and difficult to alphabetize after
the first few.

Apollo had 3 that I'm aware.
Apollo 4, 6, 8, etc.
AS-201, 204, etc
SA-201, 204, etc (i.e. the same as above, but different centers put a
different emphasis on the "lead" vehicle")

And the unnumbered Apollo-Soyuz flight.

Good point. *And of course is is Skylab 1-4 or Skylab + 1-3 or some
variation there of. ;-)


Don't forget that the unflown back-up Skylab was called 'Skylab 2',
also.

On Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:52:59 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

Don't forget that the unflown back-up Skylab was called 'Skylab 2',
also.

It was actually called SkyLab-B.

Brian

On Nov 30, 6:25*pm, Brian Thorn wrote:
On Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:52:59 -0800 (PST), "

wrote:
Don't forget that the unflown back-up Skylab was called 'Skylab 2',
also.

It was actually called SkyLab-B.

Brian

they flew number 2, number one is in the smithsonian.

sad to cut up a space certified station for a display

wrote in message
...


Good point. And of course is is Skylab 1-4 or Skylab + 1-3 or some
variation there of. ;-)


Don't forget that the unflown back-up Skylab was called 'Skylab 2',
also.


As Brian pointed out, it was referred to as Skylab B. The issue numbering
Skylab flights is some consider the launch of the station itself was "Skylab
1" others (including the patch) refer to the first crewed flight to the
station as Skylab 1.
(Wikipedia appears to use SL-2 and SLM-1 to refer to the same flight so
perhaps that's one way of resolving the discrepancy. :-)

(and there's another flight never flown that perhaps we should have,
SL-5/SLM-4, a proposed 20 day flight that also would have boosted it into a
higher orbit.)



--
Greg D. Moore President Green Mountain Software
http://www.greenms.com
Help honor our WWII Veterans: http://www.honorflight.org/
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.

On Nov 29, 6:46*pm, Brian Thorn wrote:

Shuttle:
STS-1, 2, etc
STS-64B

Vandenberg Shuttle flights were evidently also called STS-1V, STS-2V,
etc.

I thought that the numbering scheme for VAFB flights was that they had
were (FY)2-(Letter). So the first flight scheduled was STS-62A, second
would have been STS-62B, and the next years flights were going to be
STS-72A, STS-72B, etc.

I don't think there ever was a x3 or a x4 envisioned.

Chris Manteuffel

On Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:11:01 -0800 (PST), Chris
wrote:


Vandenberg Shuttle flights were evidently also called STS-1V, STS-2V,
etc.

I thought that the numbering scheme for VAFB flights was that they had
were (FY)2-(Letter). So the first flight scheduled was STS-62A, second
would have been STS-62B, and the next years flights were going to be
STS-72A, STS-72B, etc.

It gets complicated, but if I understand it properly, there was also
an STS-1V for Vandenberg, an STS-2V, etc. just as there was an STS-1
through 9 at Kennedy before the number-number-letter (i.e., 41-B)
system. STS-1V is how the first Vandenberg flight was being identified
prior to the implementation of number-number-letter, which was meant
to consolidate the missions under a common system. But it seems that
within NASA, the old STS numbers were still widely used. The first
Vandenberg flight was still being referred to as STS-1V, and, for
example, there is lots of Challenger documentation referring to the
doomed 1986 STS-51L as STS-33.

That's why officially some of the early post-Challenger flights were
given an R suffix for "Reflight", i.e., 1989's STS-33 was called
STS-33R internally.

Brian

"Chris" wrote in message
...
On Nov 29, 6:46 pm, Brian Thorn wrote:

Shuttle:
STS-1, 2, etc
STS-64B

Vandenberg Shuttle flights were evidently also called STS-1V, STS-2V,
etc.

I thought that the numbering scheme for VAFB flights was that they had
were (FY)2-(Letter). So the first flight scheduled was STS-62A, second
would have been STS-62B, and the next years flights were going to be
STS-72A, STS-72B, etc.

I don't think there ever was a x3 or a x4 envisioned.



X3 was for the launches from Hugo Drax's secret base in South America.
--
Gordon Davie
Edinburgh, Scotland

"Slipped the surly bonds of Earth...to touch the face of God."