Word: orbiter
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Bright Planet. After completing their crucial rendezvous (TIME, March 14) and sending the Lunar Module they call Spider off into a looping 4,300-by-l 47-mile orbit, the astronauts were left alone in space with fully 97% of their mission objectives completed. The primary reason for remaining in orbit for another five days was to test the reliability of the Apollo systems. So the astronauts settled back for one of the most relaxed periods of any manned space flight to date, taking rest periods of ten hours or more. "The big events of today," cracked a NASA official...
While they were awake, however, the astronauts made good use of their time to gain experience in navigation and tracking-skills that will be vital for landing Spider on the moon and returning to a lunar-orbit rendezvous with Gumdrop. In addition to plotting their position by star sightings, they became the first spacemen to use the planet Jupiter for a navigational reference. The astronauts also twice sighted and tracked Pegasus, a giant satellite orbited in 1965 to record meteor hits. Pointing their scanning telescope toward earth, they obtained fixes on islands, capes and other landmarks to establish Apollo...
Calm Waters. While taking their pictures from a 281-by-113-mile elliptical orbit, the astronauts could see whitecaps in the ocean site southwest of Bermuda that had been chosen for their landing. The weather in the recovery area was so bad, in fact, that controllers avoided mentioning it to the astronauts until McDivitt asked...
...through a narrow tunnel into Spider. Then, after a few uneasy moments when the docking mechanism snagged, Scott worked Gumdrop loose and fired his thrusters briefly to separate the two craft. With McDivitt at the controls, Spider shoved off onto its maiden solo flight. It moved into a different orbit from Gumdrop's and at one point fell more than 100 miles behind. Then McDivitt began maneuvering back toward the suspenseful rendezvous and docking. Had they not been able to re-enter Gumdrop's cabins, McDivitt and Schweickart would have been doomed. Designed to operate only...
Canceled Space Walk. Spider's return to Gumdrop was the highlight of the mission, which began last week after a three-day delay to allow the astronauts to recover from troublesome colds. Launched by a Saturn 5 rocket into a near-perfect orbit, Gumdrop, in flawless sequence, separated from the third-stage S-4B rocket, pivoted in space, hooked up with Spider and plucked it out of the nose of the orbiting S-4B. On the third day, Astronauts McDivitt and Schweickart got ready to enter Spider through the 47-in.-long, 32-in.-diameter connecting tunnel...