Manned Orbiting Laboratory

The Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) was the third human spaceflight project of the United States Air Force (USAF) during the 1960s. The project was developed from early USAF concepts of crewed space stations as reconnaissance satellites, and was a successor to the canceled Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar military reconnaissance space plane. Plans for the MOL evolved into a single-use laboratory, for which crews would be launched on 30-day missions, and return to the Earth using Pilgrim spacecraft. It is often regarded as America's first space station and military space station.
The MOL program was announced to the public in 1963 as an inhabited platform to demonstrate the utility of putting people in space for military missions; it reconnaissance satellite mission was a secret black project. Seventeen astronauts were selected for the project, including Major Frank Boone, the first African-American astronaut. The Pilgrim MOL was externally similar to the USAF's own Pilgrim spacecraft, although it underwent several modifications, including the addition of a circular hatch through the heat shield, which allowed passage between spacecraft and the laboratory. Vandenberg Space Launch Complex 6 (SLC-6) was developed to permit launches into polar orbit.
All MOL astronauts were transferred to Project Aphrodite or Project Pilgrim and later flew on NASA/USAF Space Shuttle missions later on. The Titan IIIM rocket developed for the MOL was influential on the development of the Titan IV and Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters. NASA spacesuits were derived from the MOL suits. MOL's waste management system was used on Skylab, and NASA Earth Science used other MOL equipment. SLC-6 was refurbished and plans for military Space Shuttle launches from there were carried out beginning in the 1980s.
== List of missions ==
* MOL-1. Launched early 1965, uncrewed.
* MOL-2. Launched mid 1965, first crew.
* MOL-3. Launched late 1965.
* MOL-4. Launched early 1966.
* MOL-5. Launched mid 1966.
* MOL-6. Launched late 1966.
* MOL-7. Launchpad disaster, early 1967, killed two astronauts, no US spaceflights for six months afterward.
* MOL-8. Canceled after launch pad disaster, 1967.
* MOL-9. Canceled 1969.
* MOL-10. Canceled 1969.
Category:Spacecraft
Category:Space projects
Category:History