Word: crafted
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...decision is to be made when Skylab falls to a height of about 90 miles above earth, some twelve hours before estimated reentry. At that point the controllers could use some of the 6,000 remaining pounds of fuel to rotate the craft into various nose-forward, "low drag" positions, in the hope that this would prolong Skylab's life by anywhere from one to five more orbits. By contrast, a second option would be to send the vehicle into an early tumble, which would cut from one to three orbits from its natural, uncontrolled reentry. A third option would...
...because NASA is simply not certain that its efforts to select the precise final orbit will work. To do nothing in such a situation is preferable to taking a high-risk gamble and failing. Amid all those uncertainties, the engineers think the best final orbit would take the craft over the southern part of South America, across southern Africa, the Indian Ocean and India, then over China and the Pacific...
Originally, NASA had proposed in 1968 the $2.6 billion orbiting laboratory program. At that time extra rockets capable of keeping Skylab in space almost indefinitely were considered. The craft's ability to stay in orbit would be reinforced, if necessary, by astronauts transported up to it in a convenient space shuttle, then also on the NASA drawing boards. But under budgetary pressures both vehicles were simplified?and both developed unanticipated technical problems. So when Skylab's orbit began to slip, there was no shuttle to come to its rescue...
...remedy unexpected ailments. When Skylab was launched by a Saturn 5 booster rocket on May 14, 1973, a large section of its meteoroid and heat shield ripped away, taking one of its prematurely extended solar-energy wings with it. A second wing jammed in a retracted position. The craft both overheated in orbit and was dangerously underpowered. But in the space age's first salvage mission, on May 25, 1973, Astronauts Charles ("Pete") Conrad Jr. and Joseph Kerwin entered the overheated space lab and rigged a makeshift umbrella to shade the vehicle's bald spot, then spent a harrowing four...
Ironically, despite NASA'S concentration on solar research with Skylab, the agency's failure to anticipate the extent of sunspot activity during the vehicle's years in orbit contributed substantially to the craft's death. Russian scientists as well as America's own National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had predicted considerable solar disturbances, including great magnetic storms and solar flares. When they erupted in 1977 and 1978, they warmed the gases in the earth's outer atmosphere, increasing the drag on Skylab. Never fully powered because of its lost solar wing and failing batteries, the craft began to slip ever...