Word: tested
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...after spending a record-setting 326 days in the space station Mir, a prototype of one from which the Soviets hope to send men to Mars before the end of the century. The same day, NASA announced that part of a newly designed booster rocket had failed during a test firing at a Morton Thiokol plant near Brigham City, Utah, causing an undetermined delay in the faltering effort to resume U.S. manned space missions. At the same plant, five workers were killed when nearly 100,000 lbs. of solid rocket propellant for an MX missile section accidentally ignited. Since...
...failure in the booster-rocket test was unrelated to the malfunction that caused the Challenger explosion on Jan. 28, 1986, when fire burned through an O-ring that sealed the joint between two rocket sections. This time the problem was in a flexible boot ring that helps anchor the swiveling rocket nozzle to the rigid booster case. Nearly half of the ring, which is 8 in. wide, 2 in. thick and 8 ft. in diameter, broke away during the horizontal ground test; some pieces were found inside the booster. The nozzle had been deliberately shifted 7 degrees, just 1 degrees...
INFRARED SENSORS. Several satellites, including an advanced craft called Teal Ruby that is being prepared for launch, have detectors that are sensitive to the infrared frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum. These sensors can determine the size and shape of Soviet test warheads from the radiation they emit as they streak through the atmosphere. Pictures taken with film sensitive to infrared emissions are especially useful for spotting missiles or launch vehicles that have been camouflaged on the ground to look like vegetation...
LISTENING POSTS. Whenever the Soviets launch test missiles, ground controllers monitor and direct the flight by sending and receiving signals in the form of radio waves and microwaves. Those signals can be picked up by a variety of listening posts, including low-flying "ferret" satellites, ships loaded with antennas and a network of ground stations in countries that are close to the Soviet Union, such as Norway and China. By monitoring radio frequencies and telephone calls carried on microwaves, the listening posts can also eavesdrop on a broad range of Soviet military communications. Information can be gleaned, for example...
SEISMIC DETECTORS. The U.S. has set up a worldwide network of seismic detectors, like those used to measure earthquakes, that can gauge the explosive force of large underground nuclear tests in the Soviet Union. Later this month an American science team will travel to Moscow to begin working out an agreement under which the U.S. could install a more accurate detection , device near the test sites. The new system, called Corrtex, would allow the U.S. to measure nuclear blasts that are too small to be clearly identified from seismic data alone...