Word: spacecrafts
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Some time in mid-December, if all goes well, the spacecraft Mariner II will skim within a scant 10,000 miles of Venus. Like a great mechanical bug, it will point its electronic eyes at the cloud-covered planet; and then, after a brief, 30-minute look, it will soar past to lose itself in orbit around the sun. But before it cruises beyond radio range of earth. Mariner should report back to its human creators and tell them more than man has ever known before about his planetary neighbor, the heavenly body that most resembles earth in orbit, size...
...until Dec. 13 or 14 will Mariner pass close to Venus. But along the way it will conduct four experiments that are expected to tell scientists much about the conditions in interplanetary space. A magnetometer in the 447-lb. spacecraft will measure the magnetic fields of space and Venus. An ionization chamber and a group of three Geiger-Miiller tubes will measure the number and intensity of such high-energy particles as protons, electrons and the nuclei of atoms, in an effort to gather more knowledge about the hazards of manned space flights. One instrument will determine the flow...
Last week, on Cape Canaveral's Launch Pad No. 12, Mariner II also seemed doomed. The countdown was halted three times to allow technicians to examine malfunctions. When the spacecraft finally rose above its flaming tail and disappeared into the warm darkness, preliminary tracking data from Johannesburg indicated that Mariner might miss Venus by some 600,000 mile's-too large an error to be corrected by its mid-course steering motor...
...Johannesburg, not Mariner, that had made the big mistake. The start of the flight had been almost perfect. The Atlas booster shoved the spacecraft up to a height of 112 miles before its engines cut off and it separated from the rest of the vehicle as planned. Next, the second-stage Agena B rocket fired Mariner II into an 18,000-m.p.h. "parking" orbit. Cutting off its engine, Agena B then coasted until it reached the precise point for another firing, which nudged Mariner II toward outer space at an earth-escape velocity of 25,526 m.p.h.* Command to Jets...
...make a start in military spacecraft, the Air Force hopes for a 1964 launch of the Dyna-Soar, the manned space glider, which will be the forerunner of more sophisticated vehicles that will be able to maneuver while in orbit...