Word: sensor
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...seen to it that Manhattan's major north-south streets are going-or will go-one way, and traffic has speeded up about 30%. Last week Barnes finally got permission to begin installing a $100 million system of traffic lights that will get their cues from what sensor-sent messages tell a computer about the flow of traffic...
...five minutes the capsule dropped. Then, while it was still some 12 ft. in the air, a long sensing probe hanging from its belly made contact with the ground. The sensor automatically fired two small braking rockets about the size of portable fire extinguishers. With a resounding bang and a thick cloud of grey smoke, the capsule touched down on a tricycle landing gear similar to a set of small water skis...
...first command was sent when Mariner was still 107,000 miles away from Mars. This turned on the camera's shutter mechanism, started the scan platform searching with a wide-angle sensor for light from Mars, and turned on the tape recorder's power. Everything was going unbelievably well. Newsmen and families of the scientists gathered in JPL's Von Kármán Auditorium to await the cryptic reports from the primary tracking stations at Johannesburg in South Africa, Woomera in Australia and Goldstone in California...
...P.D.T., the wide-angle sensor detected the edge of Mars. Twenty-three minutes later, the narrow-angle sensor also picked up Mars. Presumably, the picture-taking sequence had begun. At 5:30 p.m., Jack James, Assistant Deputy Director of JPL in charge of lunar and planetary projects, grinned broadly as he received a report by telephone. Goldstone, he told newsmen, had just verified that the tape recorder was running. The chances of getting pictures were excellent. Mariner's cheering section broke out in applause...
...Little Sticky. Mariner had different difficulties. Just as planned, one of its bright-eyed optical sensors locked on the sun, the craft's prime navigational reference and power source for its solar cells. But when another sensor began searching the heavens for a second reference point-the giant, blue-white star Canopus-Mariner got confused and began looking around in all directions...