Word: intelsat
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...launch of Loral's Intelsat 708 communications satellite in Sichuan province in February 1996 was a fiery disaster. The Chinese-made Long March rocket that was supposed to propel the American satellite into space crashed into a hillside 22 sec. after lift-off and exploded, raining flaming rocket fuel and red-hot shards of the 3-ton satellite on a nearby village. China initially said six villagers choked or burned to death, and later upped the number to 56, but U.S. estimates put the fatalities closer...
...numerous and so intricate -- the 600-lb., telephone booth-size compartment containing Hubble's corrective lenses has to fit into an opening with less than an inch to spare -- the entire mission has + been choreographed more precisely than a Balanchine ballet. Unlike last year's rescue of Intelsat-6, in which astronauts literally grabbed the satellite when the shuttle's robot arm couldn't grasp it, the Hubble repairs require more agility than physical strength. Patience and caution are also crucial to the mission's success. Says astronaut Kathryn Thornton, who will install the planetary camera...
...four astronauts who will venture outside Endeavour to work on the Hubble -- Musgrave, Jeffrey Hoffman, Thomas Akers and Kathryn Thornton -- are all veteran spacewalkers. Thornton, a nuclear physicist and mother of five, went on the 1992 mission that repaired the Intelsat communications satellite. On that flight, the 5-ft. 4-in. K.T., as the other astronauts call her, wasn't involved in wrestling the three-ton satellite into the shuttle's payload bay. (It eventually took three men to do that job.) This time, though, she will play a key role: installing the Hubble's corrective lenses. They will...
...Space is a harsh and unforgiving place, where Murphy's Law is paramount. In fact, many of NASA's best public relations successes have come at the brink of failure. Engineers restored 70% of the Galileo probe's function after its main antenna failed to deploy; astronauts grabbed the Intelsat-6 satellite by hand when a less dramatic rescue technique proved useless; astronauts survived an explosion on Apollo 13 that could easily have been fatal...
...previous attempts to reel in Intelsat with a spring-loaded capture bar had failed. Each time Commander Thuot tried to hook his target, the satellite just bounced away. After a day's reflection, the shuttle crew thought of a way to steady the satellite and allow attachment of the bar. The bold proposal involved an unprecedented trio of astronauts working together in the unforgiving vacuum of space. If Thuot, Hieb and Akers had not coordinated their actions exactly, they could have set the satellite wobbling so hard it might have crashed into the orbiter. Had either end of the capture...