Word: spacecrafts
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...October 1997--about a month from now--and a Titan IV rocket has just lifted off the pad at Cape Canaveral. Perched on top is the Cassini spacecraft, one of the most ambitious probes NASA has ever launched. If the mission goes as planned, Cassini will reach Saturn in 2004 and spend the next four years exploring the giant ringed planet and most of its 18 icy moons...
According to a small but vocal group of antinuclear activists, however, there's much more to worry about than upset feelings. Like all the deep-space probes that have gone before it, Cassini is powered by radioactive isotopes--in this case about 72 lbs. of plutonium 238. If the spacecraft were destroyed, insist these critics, some of the plutonium could be pulverized and wafted away by the wind. Even worse, Cassini is supposed to swing by Earth in 1999 for a gravity assist that would sling it out toward Saturn. If the probe comes too close, it could re-enter...
...past two months, Mars has been a lonely place. Despite the kudos that the Pathfinder lander and its sturdy rover have received from Earth, the spacecraft have operated largely alone, trying to study all of Mars without moving beyond a small patch of riverbed real estate...
Star-crossed is too melodramatic a term for Colonel Vasily Tsibliyev, Mir's commander. Stressed out is probably more like it. Like the Mir spacecraft itself, Tsibliyev is worn down and in danger of falling apart. He has been aboard the aging space station since February and has had to cope with nonstop crises: a fire, breakdowns in oxygen and cooling systems, a collision with a cargo ship and last week a power failure. No wonder he's suffering from an irregular heartbeat and taking sedatives...
Project Viking's major goal was to search for signs of life on Mars. Each of the twin spacecraft consisted of an orbiter and a lander. Slipping into Mars' orbit in June 1976, Viking 1 spent a month shooting detailed pictures of the surface, photos that enabled J.P.L. controllers to choose a safe spot for Viking 1's lander to touch down. On July 20, lander 1 separated from its orbiting mother ship. Using retrorockets, deploying a parachute and finally firing three descent engines, it bumped gently onto a rock-covered slope on the planet's southern hemisphere. Forty-five...