Word: orbiter
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...computing machines will determine the orbit, and tracking will then be carried out by a dozen or so photographic stations. When the satellite begins to lose altitude, it will be moving so unpredictably that visual observers must once more assume tracking operations...
...artificial satellite on an orbit around the earth is in "free fall." So is a rocket cruising through space with its motor cold. People on board a satellite or rocket would feel weightless, and space medicine experts have long feared that unaccustomed freedom from gravitation will upset human organs or nerves...
...earth, moving faster on its smaller orbit, overtakes and passes Mars every 26 months, but the distance of closest approach varies considerably because both orbits are slightly elliptical, with their long axes pointing in different directions (see diagram). The earth may overtake Mars at a point where the orbits are close together, as they are this week, or where they are almost twice as far apart...
...indicating that other blueprints are gradually evolving into hardware. Planning is "about completed" on the first two stages of the rocket that will lift the moon to about 130 miles altitude, says the Navy, and is finished on the final, payoff stage that will push the moon into its orbit. Engines for all three stages have roared through ground tests. Engineers are confident that they will lick one bugaboo: heat damage to the nose of the rocket caused by aerodynamic friction...
...first, scientists thought that the moon would travel in an orbit ranging from 200 to 800 miles in altitude, whipping around the earth every 90 minutes at 1,800 m.p.h. but recent tests indicate that the moon may rise to 1.500 miles in height at the far end of its elliptical orbit, travel at 1,900 m.p.h. As the moon slows in speed, it will dip closer and closer to the earth's atmosphere until, inevitably, it will disappear in a flash of friction...