Word: nasa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...slow spin so that it can be grappled aboard the shuttle by the remote-controlled arm. The satellite will be overhauled inside the shuttle's cargo bay. If this first aid succeeds, Solar Max will go back out on orbital patrol and provide convincing evidence of a favorite NASA theme: that humans will be as important as robots in taking advantage of the growing scientific and industrial opportunities in space...
McCandless started cautiously on the epic walk, slowly moving beyond the edge of the cargo bay at a sluggish .2 m.p.h.* But as he ventured deeper into the forbidding abyss of space, whatever apprehension he may have felt-NASA no longer talks publicly about astronaut heartbeats-seemed to vanish. "Hey, this is neat!" McCandless shouted, and then followed with a verbal bow to Neil Armstrong's famous comment when that astronaut first set foot on the moon: "That may have been one small step for Neil, but it's a heck of a big leap...
Successful as the maneuvers outside the ship may have been, they could not entirely erase the gloom cast over the mission by the loss of two sophisticated communications satellites. At week's end, NASA still could not explain why Western Union's Westar VI and Indonesia's Palapa-B2 had failed to achieve orbit, except to say that their rocket motors had apparently shut down prematurely before completing their scheduled 85-sec. "burns." The prime suspects are the bell-shaped nozzles from which the boosters' flaming gases are expelled. McDonnell Douglas, builder of the rockets...
Mission controllers exonerated the shuttle crew from any responsibility in the calamitous satellite losses. Under the direction of Physicist Ronald McNair, 33, both satellites were spun perfectly out of Challenger's cargo bay. Even so, there could be serious repercussions for NASA and the U.S. aerospace community. Unless the problem with the little boosters, called PAMs (for payload-assist modules), is resolved soon, some upcoming lift-offs may have to be postponed. PAMs are scheduled to be used for satellite launches in May as the upper stage of a conventional Delta rocket and in June during the maiden voyage...
Following Challenger's spectacular homecoming, NASA too showed renewed faith in its machine. At week's end, it announced that the shuttle would take off again on April 4, in a record turnaround time of only 53 days. -By Frederic Golden. Reported by Jerry Hannifin/Kennedy Space Center and David S. Jackson/Houston...