Word: orbital
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...their opportunity has come. This week the space shuttle Discovery was scheduled to take off and deliver into earth orbit the Hubble space telescope, a bus-size instrument that will see the cosmos ten times as clearly as any ground-based telescope ever has. Scientists have impatiently awaited the historic launch through three years of delays caused by the shuttle's problems in the aftermath of the Challenger explosion...
Once aloft in the dark void of space, the Hubble promises a leap in astronomical observing power unlike anything since 1609, when Galileo first pointed a telescope at the heavens. As never before, astronomers have a realistic hope of seeing planets that orbit distant stars, watching tidal waves of energy swirl around black holes and spotting the birth of galaxies. The Hubble, says presidential science adviser D. Allan Bromley, "will open entirely new windows on the universe...
...weighed little more than the men and women who built them. But big was better as the space age progressed. The largest satellites today tip the scales at 15 tons, cost hundreds of millions of dollars and are roughly the size of Mack trucks. They must be put into orbit by giant rockets or space shuttles...
...Middle East arms race is expected to take another leap into space soon when Israel launches its second and most sophisticated reconnaissance satellite. Dubbed the Ofek-2, the spying device may be in orbit in a matter of weeks, providing detailed photographs of troop movements and missile activity in Israel's neighboring Arab states...
Both satellites were developed by state-owned Israel Aircraft Industries and were designed to be hurled into space by Israel's powerful rocket, the Shavit (Comet). I.A.I. is also working on a civilian communications satellite, called the Amos, which it hopes to send into orbit within two years...