Word: orbited
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
After a voyage of more than five months and 248 million miles, the first of a trio of terrestrial ships made its rendezvous with Mars late last week. Precisely on schedule, the 1,300-lb. U.S. Mariner 9 fired its retrorocket and went into a looping orbit around the red planet, swinging as close as 800 miles to the Martian surface. With that successful maneuver, controlled entirely by its onboard computer, the $76.8 million windmill-shaped robot became the first man-made satellite of another planet. As pictures of the dust-obscured Martian surface began reaching earth, delighted mission controllers...
Small Targets. For the time being, however, Mariner 9 was stealing the space show. Even before going into orbit, it took three series of pictures of Mars from distances varying between 535,000 and 70,000 miles, stored the images on tape, and then, on commands from mission control, transmitted them back home (the signals, traveling at the speed of light, took 6½ minutes to reach earth). The early images were somewhat disappointing. Because much of Mars is shrouded by a raging dust storm that began last September, only a few features could be picked out. But the scientists...
Strange Wave. After it is captured, Mariner will be sent into a huge lopsided orbit tilted at an angle of about 65° to the Martian equator. Making a full circuit every twelve hours, the spacecraft will come as close as 750 miles to the Martian surface, then soar out to a distance of some 10,500 miles. During its expected three-month working life -longer if the power supply holds out-Mariner will radio back more than 5,000 television pictures, mapping at least 70% of the planetary surface. In addition, its two cameras will take the first relatively...
...small liquid-fuel engine for a precise 15-minute "burn," reducing the ship's velocity from about 11,000 m.p.h. to just over 8,000 m.p.h. As it slows down, Mariner will be captured by Martian gravity, thereby becoming the first man-made object to go into orbit around another planet. The three previous U.S. Mars missions were designed to make their observations during the brief time that they were passing close to the planet on the way into perpetual orbit around...
...indeed seductive: an Eternal City, according to the cliché, insinuating its spirit of timelessness into those who visit it. That attribute may be unfortunate for Roman Catholic churchmen. For while one can stand in Rome, innocently confident that the Catholic world still spins around the Vatican in reverent orbit, the facts are different. There are times when the center cannot hold, as Yeats said. Most especially it cannot hold when it is the center of an institution that fails to comprehend -or merely ignores-the centrifugal forces that are tearing at its edges. It is just that lack...