Word: orbited
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Having sufficient battery power was vital to the mission. Every time Skylab was in the earth's shadow-for some 30 minutes during each 90-minute orbit -the production of electricity by the four working windmill-shaped solar panels atop the telescope mount ceased, leaving the lab completely reliant on its batteries. Freeing the jammed solar wing thus assumed even greater importance: it could provide Skylab with another 3,000 watts of electricity while it was in sunlight and charge up eight idle batteries connected to the wing...
...Which occurs when the moon, at one of its more distant points from the earth in its elliptical orbit (when it appears slightly smaller in the sky), eclipses all or the sun except a glowing outer...
...great comet was discovered in March by Czech-born Astronomer Luboš Kohoutek while he was looking for asteroids with the Hamburg Observatory's 31-in. Schmidt telescope; at that time it was some 480 million miles away from the sun, or roughly in the vicinity of the orbit of Jupiter. In contrast, Halley's comet-less bright than Kohoutek's-was not spotted until it was about 170 million miles closer to the sun. Although the nucleus of a typical comet (which is thought to be composed of frozen water, methane and ammonia, as well...
...after last month's launch of Salyut 2 into orbit, days and eventually weeks slipped by without a manned launch...
...cause of the mishap is still in doubt. One U.S. theory was that the third stage of Salyut's large booster may have exploded after rocketing the spaceship into orbit, possibly because of an excess of unburned fuel. Drifting only a short distance away, the booster may have sent fragments ripping into Salyut, thereby badly damaging the gyroscopic controls and thrusters that help maintain the ship's stability. Another possible explanation was that one of the Soviet Union's oceangoing tracking ships inadvertently fired one of Salyut's thrusters, sending it into an uncontrollable spin...