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Space news of May and June 1979
Skylab was successfully deorbited on May 16. The reentry took place over the NASA tracking station on Ascension Island.
During May and June,Columbia was checked over in the Orbiter Processing Facility. The first Shuttle launch remains on target for November 28,1980. Crew members John Young and Robert Overmyer are into the second part of their training cycle,ascent and entry simulations. Challenger,Discovery,Enterprise,and Atlantis are all in various stages of preparation.
The Voyager 2 and Pioneer 11 missions have the spotlight as they approach Jupiter (July 9) and Saturn (September 1) flybys. Data from Voyager 1 is being studied by scientists the world over as it is targeted for its Saturn flyby on November 12,1980. Voyager 2 will fly by Saturn on August 25,1981:a decision regarding an extended mission to fly by Uranus and Neptune has yet to be taken.
The Salyut 6 crew welcomed the Soyuz T-1 crew on June 10. Cosmonauts Alexei Leonov and Yuri Ponomarov flew this short visiting mission to test out the newest Soyuz variant.