Word: orbiter
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Orbit...
...said John Glenn [July 12] was "the first man to orbit the earth." Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth. Two others preceded him: Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov...
...Monsters. Once the first lander was safely down on Martian soil-thereby assuring at least partial success of the $1 billion, eight-year-long Viking project-scientists decided that they could afford to be less cautious with Viking 2, which is approaching Mars and scheduled to go into orbit on Aug. 7. Last week scientists were considering setting the second lander down in a rugged northern region that would be more hazardous for landing than Viking 1's site but potentially more interesting to geologists and biologists...
...radar data suggested that the new landing zone is smoother than the other two, but Viking scientists wanted detailed photographs of the area before making a final decision. To get them, controllers at J.P.L. last week "tweaked" Viking's thrusters to bring the periapsis (low point) of its orbit directly over the new landing site. If the photographs confirm that Chryse Planitia is relatively smooth, Viking will land on July...
...that the "chicken soup"-a nutrient-rich broth that will be used to moisten samples of Martian soil to determine if they contain organisms-will not keep long enough for all of the experiments scheduled. Even more vexing, Viking 2 is scheduled to arrive at Mars and go into orbit on Aug. 7. That will crowd the schedule of the Viking 1 lander, which will not begin to conduct its experiments until eight days after it lands. Each of the experiments requires an eleven-or twelve-day cycle, and if one of the experiments shows some promising results, it will...