Word: orbited
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...pride of the U.S. space program, the largest and most sophisticated vehicle ever sent into orbit. Circling the earth every 90 minutes, the 85-ton Skylab had been a scientific workshop for three teams of astronauts for a total of 172 days. But lately it has been in trouble. Unoccupied since 1974, Skylab has been losing altitude much more rapidly than expected, a change threatening it with incineration in the earth's atmosphere...
...prevent that, NASA engineers had devised a daring rescue. The new space shuttle, slated to make its first flight in September, would intercept Skylab, attach a small booster engine to one end, then fire it. Thus space planners could either raise Skylab.to a higher orbit or send it plunging harmlessly into an ocean. Last week, after weighing the chances of such an orbital operation, NASA conceded defeat. That means Skylab will expire in a meteorite-like death that could scatter parts of the space station on populated regions...
...scientific error about the extent of sunspot activity in the late 1970s and its effect on Skylab. By spewing out clouds of charged particles, these great solar magnetic storms help heat up and expand the earth's upper atmosphere. That creates more drag for objects in orbit, hastening their reentry. Confronted by a falling Skylab, NASA last spring began developing the $26 million booster engine. But it was clear, especially after troubles with the shuttle's own engine, that a Skylab rescue could not be undertaken before April 1980. By then, chances of success were reckoned at less...
...Arecibo, Puerto Rico, the researchers detected rhythmic radio signals from the constellation Aquila. The bursts were coming from a pulsar, or rapidly rotating neutron star-the incredibly compressed cadaver of a giant star whose nuclear fires have died out. Some 15,000 light-years away, it apparently was in orbit around a second compact object, perhaps another neutron star or even a black hole, whose gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape its grasp...
...vehicle: the unmanned Pioneer Venus 1 spacecraft. Though launched almost three months before Pioneer 2, it has followed a more sweeping trajectory around the sun and will just barely nose out its sister ship, arriving at Venus on Dec. 4. Its assignment is different too; it will ease into orbit around Venus, and in addition to scanning the atmosphere below with an array of instruments, it will beam powerful radar signals through the Venusian clouds and bounce them off the surface. Pioneer 1 will then radio the radar data back to earth, where scientists hope to produce a topographic...