Summary

Footage Information

CONUS Archive
42486
Shuttle Columbia (02/26/1996)
Space
Vo/Sot
2/26/1996
19:47
3:14
NASA Tommy Holloway, Space Shuttle Program Manager Chuck Shaw, STS-75 Lead Flight Director
Sots, Columbia and tether in space.
The space shuttle Columbia experienced a small scare on Sunday when a 12 mile tether that connects a half-ton satellite, broke without warning. The crew and craft were unharmed....but the satellite drifted away from Columbia. In only minutes, the tether and satellite were more than 18 miles away from the shuttle. It's very unlikely that Columbia's crew will even try to retrieve the satellite. Mission control said the cable broke somewhere inside a tower in the shuttle cargo bay. More than 3-thousands volts of electricity from the Earth's magnetic field were being generated through the tether and satellite when it broke....causing the end of the tether to appear frayed, stripped, charred and melted. This was the second U.S.-Italian tethered-satellite system flight. The first flight, in 1992, also experienced trouble when the tether jammed because of a protruding bolt.
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