Word: nasa
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...NASA is returning to its aviation roots. The space agency revealed its plan for Mars this week, and it features... a plane. The Martian flyover in a yet-to-be-designed unmanned plane is scheduled for 2003 -- fittingly, the 100th anniversary of the first Wright brothers flight. Symbolism aside, an unprecedented amount of Martian data will be collected. "We are entering a new phase," says TIME science writer Jeffrey Kluger, who notes that the last Pathfinder mission was the first in which the surface exploration of Mars was carried out by a moving spacecraft. The plane mission takes "such mobile...
...whole, NASA has always treated Mars with respect. American spacecraft have flown by, orbited and even landed on the Red Planet. What they've never done is wound it. If scientists ever hope to understand Mars fully, however, they are going to have to puncture the dry Martian rind to sample the planetary pulp below. Next week NASA will launch a ship that will begin that process...
...path over the Martian poles, allowing it to study the local atmosphere. Its orbit will position it perfectly to act as a relay satellite for any later ship that may land on the surface. That's a good thing, since three weeks or so after the orbiter leaves Earth, NASA will launch another spacecraft, the more ambitious Mars Polar Lander...
CAPE CANAVERAL: NASA's next delivery to Mir could be four cinder blocks and a set of socket wrenches. Russian and U.S. space officials, looking for ways to save a buck on the gargantuan ISS, said Wednesday they were now considering stripping Mir for parts, to be used on the new International Space Station. But TIME science writer Jeffrey Kluger smells an excuse to keep Russia's never-say-deorbit space jalopy up a little while longer...
...more than the equipment is worth." In any event, there's plenty of time to decide what to do: The Mir's expected to stay up for at least another year. And the ISS's production schedule looks stalled again. After a mysterious alarm sounded in the cockpit, NASA delayed the launch of the space shuttle Endeavor and its cargo of an ISS connector-passageway named Unity, until Friday...