Nov 3 1998
From The Space Library
Astronauts aboard Space Shuttle Discovery successfully retrieved the Spartan spacecraft, thus completing a priority project of the nine-day mission. The crew had deployed the satellite on 1 November, to record observations of the Sun's outer atmosphere and the solar wind. Spartan had lagged 40 miles (64 kilometers) behind the Shuttle, in free flight, as it recorded the data. The flight was the last in a series of four flights begun in 1993 to "gather observations at different points in the sun's 11-year cycle of magnetic activity." NASA had originally scheduled the mission for November 1997, but astronauts had "failed to send a crucial command" before releasing the satellite, so Spartan had gathered no data. The crew had also tested an experimental laser range-finding device mounted in the Shuttle, aiming at targets on Spartan.
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