Word: spacelabs
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Despite glitches, Spacelab is off to a flying start...
This chaotic beginning last week seemed to set the tone for the debut flight of the European-built Spacelab 1. Following an almost unblemished Florida launch, the astronauts quickly started to activate the 72 experiments both inside the 23-ft.-long module and on its external pallet, where some instruments are exposed directly to space. They also commenced tests on the most complex machinery aboard the shuttle: themselves. But even though this long-awaited venture in international cooperation appeared headed toward a major success, it was accompanied by annoying glitches that turned the mission into as much a test...
...also curtailed TV pictures and disrupted a ground-to-air press conference by cutting off reporters in Europe, where the flight has been big news. The major culprit was NASA's tracking and data-relay satellite, which can relay an encyclopedic 300 megabits per second. Although designed as Spacelab's main link with the ground, it still has not fully recovered from a faulty launch last April and is now capable of sending only a fraction of its ground-to-orbit capacity. These difficulties were compounded by the brief blackout of a tracking station in White Sands...
Originally, NASA had hoped to build the portable lab itself. But after a post-Apollo retrenchment in the space program, the U.S. turned to its European allies for help and in 1973 persuaded them to contribute Spacelab. The partnership has sometimes been stormy. While the Europeans pressed ahead with Spacelab, the shuttle encountered repeated delays and design difficulties. One example: as the shuttle's flying characteristics changed because of NASA's modifications, the original idea of fitting the Spacelab module flush against the shuttle's passenger cabin had to be scuttled, and the unit moved farther back...
Despite the tensions, compounded most recently by a one-month delay in the flight because of a faulty booster-rocket nozzle, Spacelab remains an instructive example of international cooperation in a difficult area of technology. It also may be a prelude to more ambitious undertakings. Planners are already talking of giving Spacelab an array of solar panels so that it can generate its own electricity from sunlight. It would thus be able to float freely in space between shuttle missions. Initially, the unmoored laboratory would be unoccupied, acting simply as a remote-controlled observatory for scientists on earth. Eventually, more...