Word: maxed
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...celestial service call, if successful, would mean a saving of $185 million over the cost of replacing Max. It would be a technical and psychological boost for NASA'S program of future maintenance on other orbiting machinery and a giant step toward fulfilling one of President Reagan's commitments: to construct a permanent U.S. space station by the early 1990s...
...orbit flight went up with a glitch-free liftoff. For the first tune, Challenger hurtled directly into orbit instead of making the conventional three-part ascent. The lineal climb was designed to save the craft's maneuvering rocket fuel for the tricky rendezvous with Max...
...more dramatic. Mission Commander Crippen, 46, a three-flight shuttle veteran, gently juggled Challenger to within 200 ft. of Solar Max. George ("Pinky") Nelson, 33, an astronomer and high school athlete who was once offered a contract by the Minnesota Twins, then donned the $ 10 million manned maneuvering unit (MMU), the Buck Rogers-style jet backpack tested on last February's mission, to retrieve the crippled Max. His untethered ride seemed agonizingly slow. It took him 10 min. to traverse the 200 ft. from the open cargo bay across the reach of black vacuum. The short journey was historic...
...script called for Nelson to float to within arm's reach of Max's 7-ft.-long, windmill-Uke solar array panels and fire the minijets on his MMU to match Max's spin of one revolution every 6 min. Using a trunnion-pin attachment device (TPAD), a hollow canister-shaped mechanism strapped like a huge belly button to the chest of his suit, Nelson would gently bump the 5,000-lb. satellite's protruding trunnion pin (installed for just such a rescue). Three rubber-coated, spring-loaded jaws in Nelson's TPAD were supposed...
...device refused to work. "O.K., the jaws didn't fire that time," Nelson radioed after his first attempt. Twice more, with increasing force, he banged against Max without results (TPAD has no manual trigger for an astronaut to operate). Nelson's efforts turned the gentle wobble of Solar Max, whose inoperable attitude controls had been shut down as a precaution by its ground controllers, into a precarious, crazy cartwheel. Radioed a frustrated Crippen: "Is there any way that you think you can do it with your hands...