Word: orbiter
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Project Vanguard, which will put the U.S. satellite in an orbit around the earth, is moving forward at a pace that gratifies its sponsors. There have been recurrent rumors of serious trouble, but according to Deputy Director Paul Walsh, nearly everything is on schedule. Ground tests of component parts have been successful, and soon the satellite-launching vehicle will start its flight tests. Each of the three stages will be flown separately before the whole vehicle is fitted together and shot into...
...computing machines will determine the orbit, and tracking will then be carried out by a dozen or so photographic stations. When the satellite begins to lose altitude, it will be moving so unpredictably that visual observers must once more assume tracking operations...
...artificial satellite on an orbit around the earth is in "free fall." So is a rocket cruising through space with its motor cold. People on board a satellite or rocket would feel weightless, and space medicine experts have long feared that unaccustomed freedom from gravitation will upset human organs or nerves...
...earth, moving faster on its smaller orbit, overtakes and passes Mars every 26 months, but the distance of closest approach varies considerably because both orbits are slightly elliptical, with their long axes pointing in different directions (see diagram). The earth may overtake Mars at a point where the orbits are close together, as they are this week, or where they are almost twice as far apart...
...first, scientists thought that the moon would travel in an orbit ranging from 200 to 800 miles in altitude, whipping around the earth every 90 minutes at 1,800 m.p.h. but recent tests indicate that the moon may rise to 1.500 miles in height at the far end of its elliptical orbit, travel at 1,900 m.p.h. As the moon slows in speed, it will dip closer and closer to the earth's atmosphere until, inevitably, it will disappear in a flash of friction...