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Time - Man of the Year
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Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso
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05189924.000
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1992-09-10
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THE WEEK, Page 25HEALTH & SCIENCEUp to Snag a Straggler
On its maiden flight, the new shuttle Endeavour is out to rescue
a satellite
Blasting through a thin layer of clouds into blue skies
above, the new space shuttle Endeavour rode into space only half
an hour behind schedule last week, on a mission to rescue a
misplaced satellite and to give astronauts some space-walking
practice. It was the first flight for the new $2 billion craft,
a replacement for the Challenger, which blew up and killed its
crew of seven in January 1986.
The satellite in distress is Intelsat-6, designed to carry
international telephone traffic. It was launched in 1990 but was
stranded 345 miles up -- about 22,000 miles short of its
assigned orbit. The astronauts will pull the 4.5-ton satellite
into the shuttle's cargo bay, strap a booster rocket onto it and
send it on its way. Then four of them will suit up and go
outside to try out construction techniques that will be used on
the U.S. space station, Freedom, scheduled to be built by the
late 1990s. They will also test the "astrorope," a device
astronauts could use to save themselves if they start to float
off into space.