Four years ago, space physicists eagerly awaited the launch of Cluster, a quartet of spacecraft designed to fly in tandem to explore the magnetic region that surrounds Earth. On June 4, 1996, minutes after takeoff from the European Space Agency’s launch site in Kourou, French Guiana, the rocket carrying the four craft veered sharply off course and blew up (SN: 7/27/96, p.
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