Word: orbiter
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...million miles before its billion-mile cometary odyssey. Measuring 5 ft. tall and 5 1/2 ft. in diameter, the drum-shaped spacecraft was launched on Aug. 12, 1978; as one of three vehicles in the International Sun-Earth Explorer project, it was named ISEE-3 and designated to orbit a sun-earth libration point (where the gravitational pull of the sun precisely nullifies terrestrial gravity) 930,000 miles from the earth. Its mission: to study the effect of the solar wind on the earth's magnetic field. Yet even as ISEE-3 sniffed at solar breezes, its flight director, NASA...
After circling lifelessly in a low-earth orbit ever since its launch during a Discovery mission last April, the $85 million satellite had finally stirred, apparently revived by the astronauts' daring rescue operation. LEASAT last week was responding to commands from ground controllers, raising hopes that it could be lofted next month into geosynchronous orbit 22,300 miles above the earth to take its place in a Navy communications network...
Once safely in a 219-mile-high orbit, Discovery's crew members set about inspecting the condition of its cargo, three communications satellites, and promptly ran into trouble. As they were attempting to temporarily open the sunshield on AUSSAT, an Australian satellite, the shield snagged on AUSSAT's antenna and stuck. Although the astronauts managed to nudge the sunshield completely open with Discovery's 50-ft. robot arm, NASA decided it was too risky to close the screen again; if it could not be reopened, the satellite would be useless in orbit...
...deployed the next day, would probably be disabled by solar radiation while it sat unprotected in Discovery's open payload bay. The solution: AUSSAT was launched only 6 1/2 hours later, shortly before ASC1, a commercial satellite, was successfully deployed as planned, both on the first day in orbit. LEASAT 4, another orbiting link in the Navy's communications system, followed on schedule two days later...
Both the U.S. and the Soviet ASATs can reach only satellites flying in low orbit, a few hundred miles high. Reconnaissance or "spy" satellites are < vulnerable, since they hug the edge of the atmosphere for a closer view of earth, but most early-warning and communications satellites--the ones used to fight a nuclear war--float out of harm's way as high as 24,000 miles. Unless, that is, even more effective satellite killers are developed...