Word: orbital
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...disastrous 1967 launch-pad fire that killed three astronauts, the space agency has found alarmingly sloppy oversights on a key aspect of the shuttle program: the multimillion-dollar space suits that NASA hopes will let astronauts leave the shuttle's protective confines and work directly in orbit. Any failures in the suits, which in effect are mini-space capsules, could threaten the astronauts' lives...
...Atlanta," says Rob. Moments later the TV at the foot of his bed lights up with a news broadcast from Ted Turner's superstation WTBS, beamed via high-earth orbit...
...while last week, one of NASA's new customers, Telesat Canada, had some anxious moments. Both satellites were safely ejected and climbed swiftly to geostationary orbit, 22,300 miles above the equator, where they would travel in synch with the earth's rotation. But before Telesat's Anik 3-C reached its resting place over the Pacific, controllers discovered that they were unable to "talk" to the satellite on any of the programmed frequencies. The radio silence perplexed and panicked Telesat's control room on Guam. Unless Anik (Inuit for brother) accepted their commands, the controllers...
...maiden voyage in January, the orbiter Challenger will carry up an equally impressive bird: the first component of the U.S.'s new Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS). The TRW-built satellite will digest the equivalent of 140 encyclopedia volumes in a single, second-long electronic gulp. Eventually the system will consist of four satellites ringing the earth at roughly equal distances from one another. TDRSS will relay signals not only between ground and orbit but also between satellites, thereby eliminating the need for a globe-girdling network of ground stations to keep in touch with spacecraft like...
There are also political concerns. At UNISPACE 82, Third World countries were concerned that the space powers might grab off all the choice locations in geostationary orbit. (Led by Colombia, countries along the equator claimed "air rights" to everything above them, although the U.N., after two decades of debate, has yet to establish where the atmosphere ends and space begins.) Currently, communications satellites, ringing the earth above the equator, can be spaced no closer than 2° apart (out of a possible 360°) without interfering with each other. Unless something is done to alleviate this overcrowding...