Word: launch
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Paris summit meeting and launch a series of crises that continued beyond the Administration of Dwight Eisenhower through the first year of John Kennedy's New Frontier. Only in recent weeks had there seemed to be signs of thaw-and the Powers-Abel exchange was certainly the most dramatic evidence to date of that thaw. There was a further meaning to the exchange. Although the U.S. under Eisenhower had admitted the purpose of Powers' flight over the Soviet Union, Russia had never so much as admitted that Abel existed. The trade of the two men last week...
Ranger I and Ranger II had been flops because of bad propulsion; Ranger III's launch was apparently O.K. The Atlas fired its three motors, then plopped back into the ocean as planned. The Agena fired and soared into a "parking orbit," circling 105 miles above the earth. At the proper point on this orbit, Agena fired again to sling itself into a collision course with the moon. Ranger IIIs radio went on the air, and its reports were favorable...
Locked on the Sun. But the shot was not a total flop. Ranger III was as crammed with electronic tricks as a barrel of transistor radios. Even though its launching had been faulty, it was cruising undamaged through space, its intricate apparatus still in working condition. Just 27 minutes after launch, Ranger's C.C. & S. (Central Computer and Sequencer) began issuing commands that had been stored in its electronic brain. Explosive pin-pullers released solar battery panels, which unfolded like the wings of a butterfly. At the same time, Ranger's dish-shaped, long distance radio antenna swung...
There was no chance that Ranger could hit the moon, but it could curve its course closer to its target. Happily, its C.C. & S. could listen as well as command. Half a day after launch, when Ranger III was nearly 100,000 miles away from the earth, scientists from Pasadena's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where Ranger had been built, began sending new orders that C.C. & S. acknowledged and "memorized." After the command to "execute" went out, Ranger III started a complicated series of maneuvers. Its little gas jets turned it to a new attitude. Then its large midcourse rocket...
...week's end, Ranger III had swept far past the moon, missing its moving target by 22,862 miles. Now it is in orbit around the sun. J.P.L. scientists have two more Rangers nearly built-and they can now be sure that a good launch is all that stands between them and the moon...