Word: meteoroids
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Power Shortage. As Conrad and his crew ended their second week in space, those chances seemed dim indeed. Skylab's power shortage-which resulted from the jamming of one solar panel and the loss of another during launch, when the orbital workshop's meteoroid and thermal shielding ripped off-had suddenly been compounded by a severe new problem. Two of Skylab's 18 storage batteries had failed...
Barely more than a minute after the orbiting laboratory was launched two weeks ago, ground controllers knew that Skylab was in trouble. Telemetered signals indicated that the meteoroid-and-heat-shield protecting the workshop and living quarters of the craft had been ripped away. The telemetry also seemed to confirm that one of the workshop's twin electricity-producing solar panels had sheared off, and the other had been jammed by debris from the shield...
...Conrad was able to confirm what the telemetry had suggested. But after surveying the jammed solar panel and the remnants of the meteoroid shield, the skipper was reassured. "I think we can take care of it," he told relieved flight controllers in Houston. Several hours later, it appeared that NASA'S ingenious salvage operation-and indeed the entire $2.5 billion Skylab mission-might end in failure...
...attempt to free the solar panel that had been jammed by Skylab's meteoroid shield...
...have carried them up to join Skylab last week. After nearly five revolutions around the earth, Astronauts Charles ("Pete") Conrad Jr., Joseph Kerwin and Paul Weitz will rendezvous with the space laboratory, examine it and attempt two essential repairs: 1) replacing the lost section of Skylab's meteoroid and heat shield with a huge sunshade in an effort to lower the ship's scorching internal temperatures; 2) extending the vital, electricity-producing solar wing apparently jammed by the shield as it ripped away. If the astronauts succeed with these improbable assignments performed outside their craft some 270 miles...