One Hundred Years of Flight USAF Chronology ... - The Air University

1962–63
tal ballistic missile when it brought down the nose cone of an Atlas missile
launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
August 26: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration launched
Mariner 2, an unmanned space vehicle that encountered the planet
Venus on December 14, marking the first step in unmanned exploration
of the solar system by the United States.
October 14–15: The Cuban missile crisis began when Maj. Richard S. Heyser
and Maj. Rudolf Anderson, Jr., conducting U–2 reconnaissance flights
over Cuba, proved that Soviet missile sites were under construction
there.
October 18: Eight Air Force Reserve troop-carrier wings and six aerial-port
squadrons were mobilized during the Cuban missile crisis.
October 27: A 4080th Strategic Wing U–2 reconnaissance aircraft piloted by
Maj. Rudolf Anderson, Jr., was shot down over Cuba. Lost with his aircraft,
Major Anderson was posthumously awarded the first Air Force
Cross.
October 27: Strategic Air Command placed on alert the first 10 Minuteman
I intercontinental ballistic missiles, emplaced in hardened silos and
assigned to the 10th Strategic Missile Squadron at Malmstrom Air
Force Base, Montana.
November 2: President John F. Kennedy launched Operation LONG SKIP
to airlift military equipment and supplies to India after China invaded
that country. In 14 days, the Military Air Transport Service airlifted
more than 1,000 tons of cargo to Calcutta, relying on new C–135 jet
transports.
November 20: President John F. Kennedy announced that the blockade of
Cuba was over because all Soviet missiles had been removed.
1963
May 7: Dr. Theodore von Kármán, distinguished U.S. physicist whose work
contributed to USAF air and space technology, died in Aachen, West
Germany, a few days before his 82d birthday.
May 15: Astronaut Maj. L. Gordon Cooper, Jr., USAF, launched from Cape
Canaveral, Florida, in Project Mercury capsule Faith 7. On May 16,
after completing 22 orbits of Earth, he landed in the Pacific. Cooper
was the last astronaut of Project Mercury and the first to orbit Earth
for more than 24 hours.
June 8: The 570th Strategic Missile Squadron, the first Titan II unit, was activated
at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona.
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