Word: orbiteer
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...note the Army's Jupiter has reached an altitude higher than Sputnik's orbit. Why isn't the last stage of Jupiter's rocket or missile orbiting about in space...
...night of October 4. Moonwatch teams had been organized, but with no advance warning their personnel was scattered and had to be hastily assembled for spotting duty. Programming schemes had not yet been fully worked out with which to prepare MIT's IBM machines to calculate the satellite's orbit from observational data. And a special telescopic camera, especially designed for the photographic tracking of a satellite, had just been dismantled for an operational check-up and would not be serviceable for another week...
...that time, however, more believable reports of sightings had arrived from points such as Australia and Alaska, and these, coupled with data from radio contacts with the satellite established soon after its launching, were enough to permit preliminary calculations of its orbit...
Sputnik, it was found, would not be visible in the United States for about a week or ten days. Its orbit was such that it did not cross this country during the hours of morning or evening twilight, the only times at which it might be seen. The Moonwatch teams would have to wait until the orbit moved, or "precessed, enough for observation to be possible...
...reports that flowed into Smithsonian headquarters in the first few days therefore did not give exact enough satellite locations to make calculation of an orbit possible. Punched cards were fed into the type 704 computers at MIT, lights flashed and dials lit up, but the machines were not satisfied and haughtily "rejected" the information...