Word: planet
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Before the little rover can traverse the Martian surface, of course, it must reach the Martian surface, and that won't be easy. The 1,300-lb. spacecraft will slam into the planet's atmosphere at 16,300 m.p.h., ultimately causing it to experience deceleration forces of 20 Gs. The vehicle's cork-and-silicon aeroshell should absorb most of this body blow. Both a parachute and a retrorocket will slow its plunge, and an array of airbags will inflate to cushion the shock of landing. And finally, the spacecraft will simply drop to the surface, striking the ground like...
Painstaking as the rover's exploration of Ares Vallis will be, it should be worth the effort. The water that flooded the valley billions of years ago came from all over the planet, carrying all manner of rocks with it. Sojourner will pick through this geological boneyard, photographing the remains and using X-ray spectrometers to study their composition...
ARES VALLIS, Mars: That old space-travel cliche -- Houston, we have touchdown -- couldn't really apply to the Mars Pathfinder's inelegant method of landing by slamming into the planet at 55 miles per hour, then bouncing like a basketball up to as much as 150 feet in the air until coming to rest. Still, controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory were pleased. "It's been wonderfully dull," Flight Director Rob Manning said after the lander completed its seven-month journey. Whether the craft survived the impact intact was not immediately known, but NASA received radio signals from the Martian...
PASADENA, Calif: After a lull of more than 20 years, NASA is poised to resume exploration of the Red Planet as the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft prepares for a July 4 touchdown. Making a whimsical entry, the half-ton lander will approach the surface at 1pm EST at about 55 miles per hour, whereupon a bubble pack will absorb the brunt of the impact, sending the lander bouncing like a basketball up to the height of a four-story building until it settles safely on the planet surface. A small rover named Sojourner (24.5 inches long by 18.7 inches wide) will...
...much family journal as boat biography. Coomer, who's a novelist (Kentucky Love, The Loop), has a sure way with words, as when he tells how, a new-hatched captain, he held Yonder's "taut wet anchor line in my hand as if it were the reins to the planet...