Word: spacecrafts
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...speculation. Had they been called to prepare the groundwork for expulsion of Red China from the international Communist movement? Was it some sort of a summit session on East-West relations or nuclear arms control? Or had they been invited to witness the launching of a giant Russian spacecraft with five to nine cosmonauts aboard? That was the hottest rumor buzzing through Moscow...
Once the radar signature of a U.S. satellite has been determined, it is relatively easy to detect changes in the spacecraft's known configuration. In June, RSA was employed to discover which of four solar panels on a secret Air Force satellite had not flopped into place. When telemetry failed to confirm that a boom on a gravity gradient satellite had extended, RSA recognized a change in the radar pattern that proved the boom had stretched into place. A study of the radar echoes reflected from the first Nimbus weather satellite provided tumble and spin data that were unavailable...
...even included Sputnik's special radar reflectors-which led the U.S. to the conclusion that the Soviet tracking network included many low-power World War II radars. Refinement of RSA equipment and technique now allows analysts to make considerably more sophisticated, but highly classified, conclusions about Soviet spacecraft and intercontinental ballistic missiles...
...mission. They turned on the craft's landing radar system to check the effect of failing batteries on its operation, then they opened the vents on the liquid helium tanks to test the system that pressurizes Surveyor's rocket fuel. In a last effort, they fired the spacecraft's big retrorocket while it was still 70,000 miles from the moon. The spin rate slowed, but not nearly enough. Then, while the retrorocket was firing, all contact was lost with the ill-fated lunar voyager...
...this fall, NASA now plans to acclimatize him more gradually to open space. Before he leaves Gemini's cabin entirely, Aldrin will poke his head through the open hatch, stand up on his seat and shoot pictures with only the upper half of his body outside the spacecraft. NASA officials point out that Gordon and Gemini 9's Eugene Cernan, both of whom had trouble with EVA, took their space walks before their open-hatch photography sessions. But Gemini 10 Astronaut Mike Collins, who warmed up by taking photographs through his open hatch first, experienced no apparent difficulties...