Word: orbited
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...days last week, it appeared that the failure of an essential protective shield shortly after launch had touched off a chain of events that would result in disaster for the entire $2.5 billion program. But at week's end, as the crippled Skylab continued to orbit the earth, a combination of space-age teamwork and old-fashioned Yankee ingenuity on the part of NASA raised hopes that the mission could yet be salvaged. In fact, the mishap and the bold reaction to it promised to elevate a relatively monotonous experimental flight into high adventure in space...
This week, for the first time in the history of space flight, astronauts are scheduled to be sent into orbit for the express purpose of performing a major repair on a stricken ship. If all goes according to plan, Skylab's three crew members will be launched this Friday (at 9 a.m., E.D.T.) from Cape Kennedy in the same Apollo command ship that was to have carried them up to join Skylab last week. After nearly five revolutions around the earth, Astronauts Charles ("Pete") Conrad Jr., Joseph Kerwin and Paul Weitz will rendezvous with the space laboratory, examine...
...time Skylab reached orbit, NASA controllers were sure that it was in trouble. As the 85-ton spacecraft began circling the earth, it jettisoned its protective shroud, moved its telescope mount into place and unfolded the four windmill-like solar wings that sit above it. But indications were that the remaining solar wing on the Orbital Workshop could not swing out more than a few degrees from the ship and was thus not able to unfold its light-gathering panels. That was bad news indeed. It meant that Skylab was deprived of more than half its electrical power. Even...
...alone in its space troubles. Two weeks ago, the Russians orbited an unmanned spacecraft that they identified only as Cosmos 557. Last week U.S. intelligence sources reported that the mysterious Cosmos was in fact an unmanned Soyuz spacecraft that appears to have been launched as the intended docking target for a second manned Soyuz. The two ships, in effect, would have formed a mini-space station in earth orbit. But a failure apparently occurred aboard Cosmos, and the scheduled manned launch had to be scrubbed. Thus the Russians appear to have suffered a second major setback in space only weeks...
Launched last month in an effort to beat the larger Skylab into orbit, Salyut 2 was to have marked the resumption of the manned Soviet space effort after an interruption of nearly two years, in time for the big Communist May Day celebrations. It was in June 1971 that three cosmonauts perished when the hatch of their Soyuz space craft failed while they were returning from a highly successful 24-day mission aboard Salyut 1. Since then, the Russians have thoroughly redesigned Soyuz and were expected to use it to ferry men to the new orbital workshop...