Retired engineer, test pilot, and astronaut Frank Corwyn (Clint Eastwood) is brought back to NASA by his former boss Bob Gerson (James Cromwell), when it is discovered that a Soviet satellite that is using a version of Corwyn's navigation system is falling out of orbit. Corwyn, who had missed the opportunity to get into space along with a trained team because of Gerson killing his project, blackmails NASA into reassembling the team of now elderly astronauts to perform the mission. The other members of the team, Hawk Hawkins (Tommy Lee Jones), Jerry O'Neill (Donald Sutherland), and Tank Sullivan (James Garner), join Corwyn in the mission to save the satellite.