Word: orbit
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Less than twelve minutes after liftoff, a brief boost from the S-4B third stage placed Apollo into a circular 119-mile orbit at a velocity of 17,427 m.p.h. Over the Pacific for the second time, just 2½ hrs. after launch, the spacecraft was cleared by Houston for "translunar insertion" (TLI). Firing for five minutes, the reliable S-4B engine accelerated the ship to 24,245 m.p.h., fast enough to tear it loose from the earth's gravitational embrace and send it toward the moon. At a point 43,495 miles from the moon, lunar gravity exerted a force...
Continuing their flawless flight, the astronauts zoomed past the western rim of the moon at 5,645 m.p.h. They were whipped behind the far side and into lunar orbit by the moon's gravity and a 5-min. 57-sec. burn of the reliable SPS engine that reduced their speed to 3,736 m.p.h. When they emerged from behind the eastern edge, after 34 minutes during which radio communication was blocked, they had dropped into a 70-by 196-mile-high orbit...
...thing the astronauts did not observe was Apollo's companion in lunar orbit?the Soviet Union's unmanned Luna 15 moon probe (see p. 17). Arriving in the neighborhood two days before the U.S. spacecraft, Luna went into an orbit as close as ten miles from the moon and eventually landed. The chances that Luna would be visible from Apollo 11?much less collide with it?were estimated by Houston's Christopher Columbus Kraft, director of flight operations, as about "one in a billion...
After Luna 15 reached the vicinity of the moon, it went into an 83-by 179-mi. orbit. On that basis, Lovell predicted that the Russians would attempt "to land the whole spacecraft, or part of it, and collect some rock." Most Western scientists, however, doubted that such a feat could be brought off successfully on the first try. They know that the Soviets have not yet even tested a rocket large enough to launch a Luna with enough fuel to land on the moon and take off again. They also believe that Russian space techniques are still not sophisticated...
NASA also hopes to keep its manned space effort alive by using surplus Saturn 4B rockets-which now serve as the third stage of the Apollo launch vehicle-for earth-orbiting flights. This effort, dubbed the Apollo Applications Program, will begin in 1971 with a 28-day flight by three men-one a doctor. These vehicles are only forerunners of a giant space station that NASA plans to orbit by the late 1970s. The first station will probably accommodate twelve people, including the first American spacewoman. It will remain aloft for at least ten years, with crew members rotated every...