Word: spacecraft
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Columbia's flight marks the first time a spacecraft has been used more than once. NASA plans two more test flights before the shuttle begins operational flights next fall...
Nothing quite like it has ever been attempted in space. As the gleaming white-and-black orbiter hurtles across the skies, a long, mechanical arm, rather like the boom of a cherry picker, will emerge slowly from the spacecraft's cargo bay. Bending and flexing its metallic muscles, the multijointed limb will reach out into space almost as if it were guided by an independent intelligence...
...space agency has already canceled its half of a collaborative effort with the Western Europeans called the Inter national Solar Polar Mission (ISPM). Two unmanned spacecraft were to be sent in great, looping orbits over the unexplored poles of the sun. Last week J.P.L. officials gloomily conceded that they had finally given up hope of launching a once-in-a-lifetime mission to intercept Halley's comet. This primordial chunk of matter, which returns to the sun's vicinity in early 1986 after an absence of 76 years, could provide invaluable clues to understanding our solar system...
More drastic still is the imminent dismantling of Project Galileo, a $500 million enterprise that would place an unmanned spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter and drop a probe directly into the giant planet's atmosphere. More than $200 million has already been spent, including several million dollars by the West Germans...
...Imaging Radar), a scheme to place a radar-equipped robot in orbit around Venus and map its cloud-covered surface. NASA officials are even talking about mothballing the Deep Space Network, a globe-girdling array of antennas that acts as a vital communications "downlink" with all U.S. unmanned planetary spacecraft. One effect of such a move would be to silence the transmissions of the Voyager 2 spacecraft, which is scheduled to pass by Uranus...