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News Archive 2010: January |
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Global economic recession forces ESA spending freeze
The European Space Agency is instituting a spending cap for the next two years to lighten the burden on its member states brought on by the global economic recession, according to the agency's head.
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Satellite images show Haiti earthquake catastrophe
The world's space agencies and private satellite operators are capturing high-resolution imagery of earthquake-ravaged Haiti, showing catastrophic damage and crowds of displaced residents in the nation's capital city.
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Veteran astronauts find new roles in commercial sector
Two former space shuttle and space station commanders are now competitors in the nascent world of commercial human spaceflight, a start-up industry still in its infancy but likely close to receiving a major boost from the White House.
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Spacewalkers ready new Russian docking port
Space station cosmonauts Maxim Suraev and Oleg Kotov completed a successful five-hour 44-minute spacewalk Thursday, completing work to outfit a new Russian docking module. The International Space Station now boasts four ports for visiting Soyuz crew ferry craft and unmanned Progress supply ships, a requirement for expanded crews of up to six astronauts and cosmonauts.
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EVA BEGINS
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Landsat fleet hanging on, waiting for reinforcements
The nearly 26-year-old Landsat 5 remote sensing satellite has cheated death once again, but Earth scientists will have to wait three more years for a fresh spacecraft to meet all their research needs.
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NASA develops plan to avoid shuttle launch delay
NASA managers decided Tuesday to modify existing space station ammonia coolant hoses by welding shorter sections together to replace a longer hose design that failed a recent ground pressure test. If the work goes well - and the schedule is tight - NASA hopes to launch the shuttle Endeavour on Feb. 7 as planned to deliver a new module to the orbiting lab complex.
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STORE: STS-130 PATCH (free U.S. shipping)
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SCIENCE WIRE Communications from scientists to you
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First direct spectrum of an exoplanet captured -- By studying a triple planetary system that resembles a scaled-up version of our own Sun's family of planets, astronomers have been able to obtain the first direct spectrum -- the "chemical fingerprint" -- of a planet orbiting a distant star.
Unprecedented details seen on the surface of Betelgeuse -- Using interferometry, an international team led by an astronomer of Paris Observatory obtained an unprecedented image of the surface of the red supergiant Betelgeuse, in the constellation of Orion.
Scientists use mirror effect to reproduce IBEX observation -- Ever since NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, mission scientists released the first comprehensive sky map of our solar system's edge in particles, solar physicists have been busy revising their models to account for the discovery of a narrow "ribbon" of bright emission that was completely unexpected and not predicted by any model at the time.
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Astronauts prep for busy stretch on space station
Using a robotic arm and a high-tech railcar, astronauts aboard the International Space Station finished moving a storage platform Tuesday, beginning a busy two weeks aboard the complex that include a spacewalk and relocations of a Soyuz lifeboat and a docking adapter.
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Most recent shuttle crew presents its mission movie
Space shuttle Atlantis' penultimate voyage occurred in November 2009, a mission that delivered nearly 15 tons of spare parts and supplies meant to fortify the future of the International Space Station. The STS-129 astronauts recap the mission in this post-flight presentation, which is posted for download by Spaceflight Now+Plus subscribers.
VIDEO REPORT
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Will Phoenix rise again?
Despite longshot odds, NASA will begin listening for radio signals from the Phoenix lander on Mars next week as a sheet of dry ice recedes with the onset of Martian spring.
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SCIENCE WIRE Communications from scientists to you
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Hubble reaches 'undiscovered country' of primeval galaxies -- NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has broken the distance limit for galaxies and uncovered a primordial population of compact and ultra-blue galaxies that have never been seen before.
As the crust turns: Cassini data show Enceladus in motion -- Blobs of warm ice that periodically rise to the surface and churn the icy crust on Saturn's moon Enceladus explain the quirky heat behavior and intriguing surface of the moon's south polar region, according to a new paper using data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
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Daring asteroid probe on course to reach Earth
Japan's gritty Hayabusa probe isn't the first mission to be called the little spacecraft that could, but the small robot is on the verge of concluding a remarkable journey through the cosmos.
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Three Martian meteorites triple evidence for Mars life
More meteorites from Mars may hold evidence of life in the early history of the Red Planet, and scientists believe advanced instruments will in 2010 be able to definitively prove whether the meteorites contain fossils of alien life.
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Next shuttle mission could change due to payload issue
Problems with ammonia lines and connectors needed to route cooling to and from a new space station module scheduled for launch aboard the shuttle Endeavour Feb. 7 could force NASA managers to modify or delay the assembly flight, sources said Friday.
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LAUNCH WINDOWS CHART
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STS-130 FLIGHT PLAN
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Minotaur rocket issue triggers revamped manifest
A team of industrial and military engineers have designed a fix to the issue grounding the new Minotaur 4 rocket, but an $800 million space tracking satellite waiting for launch could be shuffled behind other payloads in the Air Force manifest.
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Europe unveils first Galileo satellite contracts
The European Commission has awarded a contract for the first 14 Galileo navigation satellites to OHB System of Germany and selected the Soyuz rocket to launch the constellation.
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Endeavour completes frigid journey to launch pad
Working through bone-chilling temperatures gripping the Kennedy Space Center, a small team of technicians Wednesday morning moved the space shuttle Endeavour from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad for its early February trek to the International Space Station.
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MISSION STATUS CENTER - updates and video!
PHOTOS: ENDEAVOUR REACHES LAUNCH PAD
PHOTOS: ENDEAVOUR EMERGES FROM VAB
COUNTDOWN TIMELINE
STS-130 FLIGHT PLAN
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TIME-LAPSE SHOWS ENDEAVOUR'S PAD ARRIVAL PLAY
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WISE catches first glimpse of the infrared universe
NASA's infrared sky-mapping telescope has snapped its first image of the cosmos three weeks after launch, confirming the spacecraft's sensitive detectors are ready to create an atlas of the universe.
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Bolden: Obama supportive of human space exploration
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said Tuesday that he's confident President Obama is committed to human space exploration and assured scientists the agency's robotic missions will not be cut to pay for the manned program.
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Engine testing clears way for maiden Falcon 9 launch
SpaceX has completed testing of the Falcon 9 rocket's propulsion system as launch preparations get underway at the company's Cape Canaveral launch site for the vehicle's first flight.
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Kepler detects five 'hot Jupiters' in six weeks
A robotic planet-hunting telescope in deep space has detected five new blistering worlds beyond the solar system, but the Kepler probe's search for Earth-like planets is just beginning.
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KEPLER LAUNCH COVERAGE
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SCIENCE WIRE Communications from scientists to you
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Massive black hole implicated in stellar destruction -- New results from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Magellan telescopes suggest that a dense stellar remnant has been ripped apart by a black hole a thousand times as massive as the Sun.
Giant intergalactic gas stream longer than thought -- A giant stream of gas flowing from neighbor galaxies around our own Milky Way is much longer and older than previously thought. The new revelations provide a fresh insight on what started the gaseous intergalactic streamer.
Astronomers discover waltzing black holes -- Astronomers have discovered 33 pairs of waltzing black holes in distant galaxies. This result shows that supermassive black hole pairs are more common than previously known from observations.
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Delta 4 assigned to deliver military satellite into orbit
The U.S. Air Force has tapped the Delta 4 as its rocket of choice to launch the fourth Wideband Global SATCOM spacecraft two years from now, officials announced Monday.
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Herschel telescope ready to shift science into high gear
The Herschel telescope's highest resolution instrument will begin observing the infrared universe this month after operations were suspended in August due to faulty electronics, according to the mission's project scientist.
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SCIENCE WIRE Communications from scientists to you
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Stellar mosh pit resolves a mystery -- For almost 50 years, astronomers have puzzled over the youthful appearance of stars known as blue stragglers. Blue stragglers are the timeworn Hollywood starlets of the cosmos: They shine brightly, they are older than they appear, and they have, disconcertingly, gained mass at a late stage of life.
Vampires and collisions rejuvenate stars -- Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have uncovered two distinct kinds of "rejuvenated" stars in the globular cluster Messier 30. A new study shows that both stellar collisions and a process sometimes called vampirism are behind this cosmic "face lift."
Suzaku finds fossil fireballs from supernovae -- Studies of two supernova remnants using the Japan-U.S. Suzaku observatory have revealed embers of high-temperature fireballs that immediately followed the explosions. Even after thousands of years, gas within these stellar wrecks retain the imprint of temperatures 10,000 times hotter than the sun's surface.
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Read our earlier news archive page.
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This beautiful one piece set features the Apollo program emblem surrounded by the individual mission logos.
The official embroidered patch for shuttle Endeavour's flight to launch the Tranquility module and cupola to the space station now available in our store!
The official embroidered patch for mission STS-125, the space shuttle's last planned service call to the Hubble Space Telescope, is available for purchase.
The Orion crew exploration vehicle is NASA's first new human spacecraft developed since the space shuttle a quarter-century earlier. The capsule is one of the key elements of returning astronauts to the Moon.
The official patches from Apollo 1, the shuttle Challenger and Columbia crews are available in the store.