Word: nasa
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...cockpit last week during the first nighttime launch of a U.S. space shuttle. So bright were the exhaust flames of Challenger's main engines and twin solid-fuel rocket boosters, which burn at 6000° F, that observers gathered at Kennedy Space Center for the eighth flight of NASA's Space Transportation System (STS-8) could read newspapers outdoors at 2:32 a.m. Awed by the sight of the flames against the night sky, Flight Commander Richard Truly, a veteran of the shuttle's second flight, asked ground controllers to record his impressions moments after liftoff. Said...
Bluford's report delighted NASA'S engineers, as did the absence of other serious problems aboard the shuttle when the five-man crew completed its orbital agenda. A key test of the Challenger's 50-ft. mechanical arm went off smoothly. Guided by Bluford and Mission Specialist Dale Gardner, the arm slowly grasped an 8,500-lb. dumbbell in the middle of the cargo bay, hauled it out into space and brought it back inside. The test was a preparation for STS-13, scheduled for next April, when NASA hopes the arm will pluck a malfunctioning...
...NASA officials had hoped that Reagan's call would be electronically routed to Challenger through the troubled Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TORS), which failed to reach its proper orbit for more than two months after its April launch. The satellite is supposed to enable continuous transmissions from space to ground while the shuttles orbit around the globe. TDRS made successful hookups with Challenger earlier in the mission, but by the time Reagan placed his call, the $1 billion radio relay system was temporarily on the fritz. The cause: computer failure at the radio receiving station in White Sands...
...shuttle's next flight, ST59 (scheduled for Oct. 28). The system will be vital to the operation of the European-built Spacelab, a laboratory for ongoing space experiments to be borne aloft by STS-9. To reassure Spacelab's anxious European backers, NASA added a day to the initial schedule for STS-8, thus allowing more time for the crew to check the voice, data and video transmission circuits of TDRS. Though the system delivered an "out of order" message to the President, NASA technicians were at pains to insist that at other times during the week...
...NASA's nighttime dazzler, while useful practice for future shuttle service, is required by the mission's major objective: putting into orbit a giant communications and weather satellite for India. The $45 million instrument will be spun away from the Challenger on the second day of the flight. To site it correctly, the shuttle has to be placed in a different orbit from its seven predecessors, one that can be achieved only through a night launch. And because of the rigid rules of orbital mechanics, only a night landing is possible. Otherwise, the spaceship would have to circle...