Science: Fists in Space

For the Navy’s radar scanners stationed at Dahlgren, Va., tracking a mouse is easy—if it is the right breed of mouse. Their latest achievement: spotting a speck of debris from the Transit II-A satellite, launched June 22, still floating 400 miles in space. The bits and pieces have been identified as a de-spin weight, about the size of two clenched fists, dangling at the end of an 8^½ft. braided cable a little thinner than a pencil. Hardly visible to the eye at 100 yds., its electrical properties make it easily spotted by radar at 400 miles.