Word: orbit
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...satellite carrying a nuclear reactor to power its ocean-scanning radar and radio circuitry. The craft crashed into the atmosphere over a remote Canadian wilderness area last week, apparently emitting strong radiation. American space scientists admitted that if the satellite had failed one pass later in its decaying orbit, it would have plunged toward earth near New York City-at the height of the morning rush hour...
...blue-uniformed analysts had followed Cosmos 954 since its launching on Sept. 18, 1977. The 46-ft.-long vehicle, weighing more than five tons, was in a 150-mile-high orbit designed to cover the world's oceans from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Its parabolic radar antenna scanned the seas for ship movement, and its radio transmitters relayed the collected information to Soviet ground stations. But in mid-December, Cosmos 954 began to droop in its orbit, slipping closer to earth with each revolution. The Soviets sent the satellite a radio command that should have caused...
...last Monday afternoon, NORAD had a better fix on the decaying orbit, projecting the terminal track across the Australian deserts, then northeastward over the Pacific and into the beginning of reentry over the Queen Charlotte Islands, off British Columbia. Before dawn, Brzezinski was aroused with the news that Canada indeed...
...Soviet predecessors of 954 broke up on re-entering the atmosphere in 1973 and fell into the Pacific north of Japan. Two Russian moon-bound craft, which used radioactive fuels to heat their capsules, went into earth orbit in 1969, but dropped back into the atmosphere and burned out with some release of detected high-altitude radiation...
...which has been using SNAP (Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power) power packs since 1961, has had three accidents. A Navy navigation satellite failed to reach orbit in 1964 and disintegrated in the atmosphere over Madagascar. A meteorological satellite was aborted on launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in 1968, and the nuclear package was recovered intact. As Apollo 13 returned from an unsuccessful moon flight in 1970, the three astronauts had to jettison their unused moon lander, and its power pack plunged into the Pacific Ocean near Australia...