Biggest environment satellite goes silent

Agence France-Presse: The European Space Agency said on Thursday it had lost contact with Envisat, the biggest Earth-monitoring satellite in history. Designed to operate for only five years, Envisat was launched in March 2002, carrying 10 instruments to monitor the planet's oceans, ice, land and atmosphere. The giant 8.2-tonne, 10.5-metre (34.1-foot) craft carried on working for a decade, racking up a total of 2.25 billion kilometres (1.4 billion miles), or more than 50,000 orbits, ESA said. The satellite failed...

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