Breakaway!

IT SEEMS to be a
jinxed programme for
the National Space and
Aeronautics
Administration (NASA)
in the us. While
its first effort to
deploy a satellite in
space as part of the
Tethered Satellite
System - a joint
us-Italian venture -
ended unsuccessfully
after the tether got
jammed, this time, the
satellite decided
to go its own way
after the tether connecting it to the main
shuttle, Columbia,
mysteriously snapped
on February 26.

Embarassed us and
Italian researchers are still
wondering how the half-tonne satellite
costing us $440 million
went spiralling into
oblivion along with
19 km of jumbled
tether, lost forever.
The project involved
two purposes: to
test a new way of
generating electricity
in space which could
act as a power
source for spacecrafts
and to investigate
Columbia's ability to
tow payloads
through space. The
accident occured as
the Columbian crew
consisting of four
Americans, two
Italians and one Swiss
astronaut, were in the
process of unreeling the satellite from
the 13 m telescopic
launching boom.