Word: orbit
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...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, is assembling a board of inquiry to look into...
Despite a satellite loss, Challenger opens a new era in orbit...
When the space shuttle Challenger lifted off from Florida last week, the roaring flames signaled the start of NASA's busiest year in space. Ten missions are scheduled for 1984, including one with a secret Pentagon payload. But Challenger had barely settled into orbit 190 miles above the earth on the tenth shuttle mission when space gremlins struck. A multimillion-dollar communications satellite, one of two carried on board, mysteriously vanished into the void. Still, in spite of the embarrassing loss, NASA hoped to redeem itself with another of its spectaculars. This week, for the first time, astronauts plan...
...These orbital theatrics have a high purpose. In pushing off from Challenger's open cargo bay, Astronauts Bruce McCandless II, 46, and Robert Stewart, 41, both of whom are making their initial shuttle trips, will be rehearsing the first repair of a satellite in orbit. That is slated to take place in April, when astronauts attempt to retrieve and revive a $150 million robot scientific observatory nicknamed Solar Max, which has been spinning helplessly since it broke down three years ago. If this tinkering succeeds, it could pave the way for even more ambitious efforts, including the assembly...
NASA also has its eyes on another first. If winds and weather are fair in Florida at the end of Challenger's seventh day in orbit - and the problem of Palapa has been resolved - the winged spacecraft will land on the Kennedy Space Center's three-mile-long shuttle runway rather than on the hard-packed sands of California's Edwards Air Force Base. Such a feat would not only go a long way toward proving the shuttle's versatility but also save NASA at least $1 million a mission, the cost of piggybacking the orbiter...