Word: canopus
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...should be cooled to below - 400° F. to operate efficiently, refused to chill at all. Mariner 7 caused even greater concern at Mission Control when it went off the air entirely for seven hours. Apparently struck by a tiny meteoroid, the spacecraft lost its fix on the star Canopus and its directional antenna spun away from earth. A new roll-and-search command went up from Pasadena. Mariner 7 obeyed, and though performing at less than capacity, its radio functioned again...
High above the atmosphere, Mariner unfolded its four rectangular solar panels and wheeled around until sensors locked onto the sun and the star Canopus, stabilizing the 850-lb. craft in space. Then, right on course, the complex space traveler settled down for a five-month, 226 million-mile journey that is scheduled to take it to within 2,000 miles of Mars on July...
Launched on a near-perfect trajec tory toward the moon, Orbiter 2 briefly lost and then regained its navigational lock on its guiding star Canopus; other wise it was not bothered by glitches. As it sped toward the moon 93 hours later, some 2,770 miles above the lunar sur face, Orbiter's retrorocket fired, slowing the craft enough for lunar gravity to draw it into an elliptical orbit...
...second-stage Agena engine reignited and kicked the orbiter into its precise moon-bound path. Two antennas and four solar-power panels snapped out, giving the space craft a windmill look. Guidance sensors aligned it with the sun; some six hours later, a star tracker began hunting for Canopus. When the sensor repeatedly failed to lock onto the guidance star, ground controllers made do by using the moon instead...
...signaled for a checkout of Mariner's photographic apparatus. The commands turned on and then turned off power to the tape recorder, and pointed the TV camera as it would have to be when it got close to Mars. Everything functioned well. Recalling the dust problem with Canopus sensors, JPL engineers decided to remove the TV lens cover then, instead of waiting until the final encounter. If there was any dust on the cover, they did not want it shaken loose to endanger the sensors at a critical moment...