CAPE CANAVERAL, FL—In what experts are calling a breakthrough achievement that is poised to revolutionize American space exploration and telecommunications, NASA announced Friday it has successfully launched its first cordless satellite into orbit. “Launch and deployment went smoothly, and now our Wireless 1 craft appears to be operating and communicating nominally without the aid of a standard 22,000-mile satellite cable,” said Joint Agency Satellite Division director Sandra Smalley, explaining that, for the first time ever, a NASA satellite has been able to maintain contact with crew on the ground without remaining directly plugged into a computer and energy source at its launchpad. “We’ve come a long way since 1958, back when our satellites could only complete one or two orbits before their cords got wrapped around the earth and they plummeted back down to the ground. Now, with this revolutionary new technology, we actually have the potential to completely eliminate the labor-intensive task of untangling satellites whose cables have crossed paths and become tied in knots.” If successful, Smalley said the advances in cordless technology should be transferrable to the agency’s space probes as well, freeing NASA from having to continuously unspool billions of miles of wire as it has been doing for decades with Voyager 1 and 2.

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