Word: spacecrafts
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...future, and American astronauts have again landed on the moon. Emerging from their spacecraft, they perform such familiar chores as setting up a TV camera, placing various scientific instruments around their landing site, and collecting rocks and samples of the dusty lunar soil. Then they return to the ship to prepare for more far-ranging exploration. When the spacecraft's big hatch reopens, the astronauts scoot out, pedaling away as if they were on bicycles...
Following the U.S.'s successful exploration of the planet Venus with multiple Pioneer spacecraft, the Soviet Union last week landed an unmanned probe of its own on the Venusian surface. Unlike the American ships, which were primarily designed to study the Venusian atmosphere, Venera 12's lander also transmitted data from the surface for an impressive 110 min. before succumbing to the 480° C (900° F) temperature. As usual, the Soviets mixed in a little politics, placing an image of Lenin on the planet. Another Soviet craft, Venera 11, was set to reach this hot world...
...flawless launch, NASA lofted into earth orbit an $87 million remote-controlled astronomical observatory that should help answer some of the most fundamental questions about the universe. Two days later, some 29 million kilometers (18 million miles) further out in space and closing in on Venus, a U.S. spacecraft ejected the first of four probes that will thoroughly analyze the atmosphere of the cloud-shrouded planet before hitting its scalding surface...
Following the release of its first probe, the Pioneer Venus 2 spacecraft this week was scheduled to toss off three additional instrument-crammed packages. The four probes, as well as the mother ship, will arrive at Venus on Dec. 9. All five are aimed to descend over different areas of the planet, so that they will gather the widest possible range of data, including temperatures, composition, density and distribution of the atmosphere. They will be passing through hostile territory. At higher altitudes the probes will be whipped by winds with velocities that may be as high...
Preceding Pioneer 2 will be another Venus-bound vehicle: the unmanned Pioneer Venus 1 spacecraft. Though launched almost three months before Pioneer 2, it has followed a more sweeping trajectory around the sun and will just barely nose out its sister ship, arriving at Venus on Dec. 4. Its assignment is different too; it will ease into orbit around Venus, and in addition to scanning the atmosphere below with an array of instruments, it will beam powerful radar signals through the Venusian clouds and bounce them off the surface. Pioneer 1 will then radio the radar data back to earth...