Word: orbiter
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Cape Kennedy, Fla., Borman, Lovell and Anders lay strapped in the 11-ft. command module that was perched atop a 363-ft. Saturn 5 rocket. With a deafening bellow, the rocket inched upward on a rising pillar of smoke and flame, then spurted off into earth orbit. During its second turn around the planet, it accelerated from 17,400 m.p.h. to 24,200 m.p.h., enough to escape earth's gravitational embrace and send Apollo 8 on the road of night that would lead to the moon. Almost 69 hours after liftoff, the three astronauts made their historic rendezvous...
...desolate, pock-marked landscape. In the black sky above hung a half-disk -the earth-its blue and brown surface mottled by large patches of white. Thus, incredibly, they were there, precisely where the mission planners had predicted, finally living the dreams of untold generations of their ancestors. In orbit around the moon and 230,000 miles farther away from home than any humans had ever before traveled, the Apollo 8 astronauts conveyed impressions of their pioneering adventure with words that at times were poetic. Their telecasts gave earthbound viewers an unforgettable astronaut's-eye view of the moon...
...clearly defined perils, and perhaps some uncharted ones as well, Power-or oxygen-supply failures so far from earth might well doom the astronauts. Failure of the key Service Propulsion System (SPS) at crucial junctures could send them crashing into the moon or leave them stranded in lunar orbit...
...HALF-HOUR after thrusting out from earth orbit toward the moon, the astronauts faced a test that was crucial to the first actual lunar landings. They successfully separated their spacecraft from the third-stage S-4B rocket, moved 50 feet ahead of it, then turned to inspect it. After sending the S-4B off into orbit around the sun, Apollo was to continue coasting toward the moon, firing its engine briefly only if a mid-course correction was needed to put the craft precisely on its path...
...Apollo was due to curve around the western edge of the moon at a speed of 5,720 m.p.h. Around 5 a.m., behind the moon and cut off from radio contact with earth, the astronauts were to fire Apollo's rocket to cut their speed and drop into orbit around the moon. Some 20 minutes later, they would emerge from behind the eastern edge of the moon and resume radio contact. At 7:30 a.m. and again at 9:31 p.m., they were scheduled to transmit live TV pictures of the lunar surface and of the earth, hanging like...