Word: orbiter
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...blasted off from a secret U.S.S.R. test base-a huge rocket that hurled into orbit a huge satellite. The satellite separated into three parts, and one of them moved outward, leaving the earth's environs forever. Then Moscow announced triumphantly that "an automatic interplanetary station'' weighing 1,419 lbs., emblazoned with the Soviet coat of arms, was on its way to Venus-or thereabouts...
...Although never before tried, the trick has long been discussed by satellite scientists, who agree that it has important advantages. If an interplanetary vehicle is carried piggyback on a satellite, its speed and direction can be measured accurately and unhurriedly while it is still on a "parking'' orbit. Then, far in advance, a point can be selected that will be best for the probe's interplanetary takeoff...
...accomplished in various ways. To judge from their scanty description, the Russians separated a "guided space rocket" from the main body of their sputnik, and pointed it in the correct direction, presumably by discharging small rockets or gas-jets. When it reached the preselected point on its orbit, the main rocket fired, contributing additional push that made the station spiral away from the earth and curve inward toward the sun and the orbit of Venus (see diagram...
...next post), during the riots that brought cancellation of President Eisenhower's visit to Japan last spring. Of particular appeal to the Administration is Reischauer's intimate knowledge of Korea as well as Japan. The State Department would like to bring Korea back into Japan's orbit, thus take some of the heat off Japan's search for greater trade with Red China...
Other facts and figures were known: the launcher was an Atlas, and the second stage was an Agena, which spun into orbit, weighed some 4,000 Ibs., including 2,000 Ibs. of instruments and equipment. But the most significant thing about last week's Samos was the secrecy that shrouded it. Said an official Air Force spokesman in a masterpiece of Pentagonese: "The purpose of the initial Samos flights is component testing bearing on the engineering feasibility of obtaining an observation capability from an orbiting satellite...