Starliner grounded
After Boeing discloses major software glitches that had previously gone unannounced from December’s uncrewed test flight of the human-rated CST-100 Starliner space vehicle, the vehicle is grounded pending a second test flight that can demonstrate the issues in question have been corrected. The software glitches include the onboard computer’s event timer being off by 11 hours, and a second glitch, had it not been discovered, would have caused the Starliner command module and its separated service module to collide before re-entry – an event likely unsurvivable in a crewed mission. Boeing and NASA will both participate in the investigation of the issues before certifying the Starliner for another flight.
Star Trek: Discovery: An Obol For Charon
Streaming service CBS All Access releases the 19th episode of Star Trek: Discovery. Tig Notaro, Rebecca Romjin (X-Men, The Librarians) and Bahia Watson (The Handmaid’s Tale) guest star.
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Star Trek: Discovery now streaming on Paramount Plus
The Orville: Season 1 soundtrack
La-La Land Records releases a 2-CD set of selections from the soundtrack from season 1 of the Fox sci-fi series The Orville, featuring music by Bruce Broughton (Lost In Space), Joel McNeely (The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles), John Debney (seaQuest DSV, Doctor Who), and Andrew Cottee.
The X-Files: Kitten
The 213th episode of Chris Carter’s modern-day science fiction series The X-Files airs on Fox, starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. Mitch Pileggi and Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense) guest star.
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Richard Hatch, actor, dies
Actor Richard Hatch, who starred in the 1970s series Battlestar Galactica as Captain Apollo and then took on the new role of Tom Zarek in the show’s longer-running early 2000s re-imagining, dies of pancreatic cancer at the age of 71. Both before and after his starring turn as Apollo, Hatch was a mainstay of 1970s and ’80s TV, with guest appearances in The Love Boat, CHiPS, Fantasy Island, MacGyver, T.J. Hooker and Baywatch. In 1999 he unsuccessfully pitched a Galactica revival to Universal Studios, based loosely on a line of post-TV-series novels he co-authored earlier in the ’90s. He also played a key role in the Star Trek fan film Prelude To Axanar, and was set to reprise his role in a feature-length fan project continuing its story.
The Flash: Untouchable
The CW airs the 58th episode of The Flash, a modern-day reboot of DC Comics’ superhero starring Grant Gustin.
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Legends Of Tomorrow: Turncoat
The CW airs the 27th episode of Legends Of Tomorrow, starring Arthur Darvill, Brandon Routh, Caity Lotz and Victor Garber.
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ISS in standard orbit, Captain…
Canadian-born International Space Station Commander Chris Hadfield, following up on a brief communication via Twitter that caught the attention of Star Trek fans and space exploration afficionados alike, conducts a live video chat from orbit with Star Trek star William Shatner (speaking from Earth). The two discuss the risks of space exploration and the technological leaps forward (including means of communication that were strictly science fiction in Star Trek’s heyday), though Shatner can’t convince Hadfield to confirm rumors that the astronaut has volunteered to head up a mission to Mars.
STS-122
Space Shuttle Atlantis lifts off on the 121st shuttle flight, a 13-day mission to deliver another laboratory module to the International Space Station. The European Space Agency’s Columbus lab module is ESA’s contribution to the station, and is attached to the recently-installed Harmony node over the course of three spacewalks. Aboard Atlantis for her 29th flight are Commander Steve Frick, Pilot Alan Poindexter, and mission specialists Stanley Love, Leland Melvin, Rex Walheim and Hans Schlegel. ISS Expedition 17 crewmember Leopold Eyharts travels to the station aboard Atlantis, while ISS Expedition 16 crewmember Daniel Tani returns to Earth on the shuttle in his place.
Lost: Not In Portland
ABC airs the 54th episode of the J.J. Abrams-produced series Lost. Guest star Nestor Carbonell makes his first appearance as Richard Alpert.
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Lost now streaming on Amazon Prime
Hyperdrive: Clare
The fifth episode of the science fiction sitcom Hyperdrive premieres on BBC2, starring Nick Frost, Miranda Hart and Kevin Eldon. Sally Phillips (Bridget Jones’s Diary) guest stars.
Star Trek: Enterprise cancelled
Citing declining ratings, UPN and Paramount announce that Star Trek: Enterprise‘s current season – its fourth – will be its last. The last episode will be shot in March. At 97 episodes (the network’s press release says 98, as Paramount typically counts the two-hour series premiere in 2001 as two shows), Enterprise is the shortest Star Trek spinoff since the original Star Trek was cancelled after three seasons in the 1960s. David Stapf, President of Paramount Network Television, says in a statement, “All of us at Paramount warmly bid goodbye to Enterprise, and we all look forward to a new chapter of this enduring franchise in the future,” though the cancellation marks the first time since 1987 that there is been no new Star Trek in production for TV; at least one spinoff has been in production continuously for 18 years, resulting in 619 episodes (seven of them two-hour TV movies) and four spinoff-based feature films. Another movie, the eleventh in the franchise’s history, is reportedly moved to the back burner by Paramount.
STS-98: fulfilling Destiny
Space Shuttle Atlantis lifts off on the 102nd shuttle flight, a mission to install the American-made Destiny laboratory module on the International Space Station. Once attached to its connection point on the Unity module, Destiny is powered up and pressurized, adding more space for scientific experiments to the station. Aboard Atlantis for her 22nd flight are Commander Kenneth Cockrell, Pilot Mark Polansky, and mission specialists Robert Curbeam, Thomas Jones and Marsha Ivins.
E:FC: Scorched Earth
The 58th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict, airs in syndication, starring Robert Leeshock, Jayne Heitmeyer, Von Flores, and Richard Chevolleau. Simon MacCorkindale (Quatermass, Manimal) guest stars.
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Earth: Final Conflict now streaming on Amazon Prime
The X-Files: Two Fathers
The 128th episode of Chris Carter’s modern-day science fiction series The X-Files airs on Fox, starring Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny. Veronica Cartwright (Alien) and Nick Tate (Space: 1999) guest star.
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The The Outer Limits: Stream Of Consciousness
Showtime airs the 48th episode of The Outer Limits, a revival of the 1960s science fiction anthology series. George Newbern (Scandal) guest stars.
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Star Trek: TNG: Lower Decks
The week-long national syndication window opens for the 166th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
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Star Trek: DS9: Paradise
The week-long national syndication window opens for the 34th episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Julia Nickson (Babylon 5) guest stars.
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The Flash: The Trickster
The 12th episode of the superhero series The Flash, based on the DC Comics character, airs on CBS, starring John Wesley Shipp and Amanda Pays. Mark Hamill (Star Wars, Batman: The Animated Series) guest stars.
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Salyut 7’s plunge to Earth
The last of the Salyut space stations from the heyday of the Soviet space program, Salyut 7 tumbles into the Earth’s atmosphere, its supply of fuel exhausted. (No cosmonauts have occupied Salyut 7 since 1986.) With the large Kosmos 1686 expansion still docked, most of Salyut 7 disintegrates in the atmosphere, though some debris is scattered over Argentina. Salyut 7 lasted nearly nine years in orbit.
Quantum Leap: Her Charm – September 26, 1973
NBC airs the 23rd episode of Donald Bellisario’s science fiction series Quantum Leap, starring Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell. Teri Austin (Knots Landing) guest stars.
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Misfits Of Science: Against All Oz
The 14th episode of James D. Parriott’s lighthearted sci-fi series, Misfits Of Science, airs on NBC, starring Dean Paul Martin, Kevin Peter Hall, and Courteney Cox. Diane Civita (V) guest stars.
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Twilight Zone: Episode 17
CBS airs the 17th episode of a revival of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. Gerrit Graham and Scott Wilson star in an episode comprised of two short stories.
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The Twilight Zone now streaming on Paramount Plus
Manned Maneuvering Unit
Astronaut Bruce McCandless becomes the first untethered human spacewalker when he leaves the cargo bay of Space Shuttle Challenger aboard a Manned Maneuvering Unit, a jetpack-like device allowing him to maneuver freely with no hoses or cables connecting him to the shuttle. In development since the Gemini era, and tested briefly aboard Skylab in prototype form, the MMU will see use on only three missions before NASA puts it in mothballs.
Doctor Who: Keeper Of Traken, Part 2
The 547th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. This is the beginning of a trilogy of stories themed around the Doctor’s regeneration and the reintroduction of the Master. Sarah Sutton makes her debut as Nyssa. Anthony Ainley guest stars.
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Buck Rogers: Olympiad
NBC airs the 17th episode of Buck Rogers In The 25th Century. Timed to coincide with the 1980 Winter Olympics, the episode guest stars former Olympic athletes Thomas Henderson and Carlos Palomino.
Supertrain
The TV movie-of-the-week Supertrain airs on NBC, starring Edward Andrews and Patrick Collins. The movie revolves around the inaugural cross-country trip of an atomic-powered luxury passenger train; the expense involved in creating the sets and miniatures for that train will prove to be an expensive debacle for NBC when the ratings drop perilously for the weekly episodes afterward. Steve Lawrence, Char Fontane, Don Stroud, and Keenan Wynn guest star.
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Children Of The Stones: Charmed Circle
UK regional broadcaster HTV premieres the fifth episode of children’s paranormal series Children Of The Stones, starring Gareth Thomas (Blake’s 7) and Freddie Jones (Dune). The series is filmed on location near the real stone circle at Avebury. 
Soyuz 24
The Soviet Union launches the Soyuz 24 mission to the Salyut 5 military space station. Cosmonauts Viktor Gorbatko and Yuri Glazkov carry special breathing gear to protect them from toxic fumes reported to have been the cause of the hasty exit of the crew of Soyuz 21 in 1976. They vent the entire atmosphere of Salyut 5 into space and replenish it, taking up residence for 18 days, during which they perform their own science and Earth surveillance experiments. They leave the station habitable for a visit by another crew, but Salyut 5’s fuel will be exhausted before that mission can take place.