Word: launchful
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With his aircraft and some 3,000 troops in place in Chad and in the neighboring Central African Republic, Mitterrand was able to launch a two-pronged diplomatic offensive. He dispatched key aides to a number of capitals to see if Gaddafi would consider a negotiated solution. Equally important, he took the initiative to silence his critics at home. In his first formal statement on France's involvement in Chad, he told the newspaper Le Monde that French troops were in Chad only as "instructors" who would provide "logistical support" and exercise a "dissuasive role." Mitterrand added that...
Nonetheless, it was doubtful that Gaddafi, who had committed as many as 3,500 troops to the attempt to replace Habre with ex-President Goukouni Oueddei, would back off completely in the face of the French military buildup. Aware of the French reluctance to launch an assault, Gaddafi seemed to be hoping that he could secure through negotiations at least part of what he had sought to achieve through force of arms, namely the annexation of a chunk of northern Chad...
...lift-off will mark the U.S.'s first nocturnal launch of a manned spacecraft since Apollo 17 roared away in a blaze of fire and smoke shortly after midnight on Dec. 7, 1972. The glow was seen by residents of the Great Smoky Mountains, 500 miles away from Cape Canaveral. The spectacle of the ST58 launch should be even more brilliant: the shuttle's engines and twin solid-fuel rocket boosters will generate a temperature of 6,000° F, double that produced by the Apollo...
...weather satellite for India. The $45 million instrument will be spun away from the Challenger on the second day of the flight. To site it correctly, the shuttle has to be placed in a different orbit from its seven predecessors, one that can be achieved only through a night launch. And because of the rigid rules of orbital mechanics, only a night landing is possible. Otherwise, the spaceship would have to circle the earth for a month before finding a daytime window through which to come down...
...mission specialist aboard ST58 who will launch the satellite from the shuttle's payload bay is Air Force Lieut. Colonel Guion (Guy) S. Bluford Jr., 40, America's first black astronaut, though not the first black in space. That distinction belongs to Arnaldo Tamayo Mendez of Cuba, who was sent aloft with Soviet cosmonauts in 1980. Other members of the crew: Navy Captain Richard Truly, the flight commander, flying his second shuttle mission; Navy Commander Daniel C. Brandenstein, the Challenger's pilot; Navy Lieut. Commander Dale Gardner, who will help deploy the Indian satellite; and Physician William...