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News Archive: July 1-31 |
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Concern increasing for
Mars rover Opportunity
Rover engineers are growing increasingly concerned about the temperature of vital electronics on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity while the rover stays nearly inactive due to a series of dust storms that has lasted for more than a month.
 FULL STORY
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Shuttle Endeavour cabin leak being investigated
Engineers readying the shuttle Endeavour for the start of its countdown Saturday and launch next Tuesday on a space station assembly mission are wrestling with an apparent crew cabin leak that is proving difficult to isolate.
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Supergiant star spews molecules needed for life
University of Arizona astronomers who are probing the oxygen-rich environment around a supergiant star with one of the world's most sensitive radio telescopes have discovered a score of molecules that include compounds needed for life.
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Satellites unveil new type of active galaxy
An international team of astronomers using NASA's Swift satellite and the Japanese/U.S. Suzaku X-ray observatory has discovered a new class of active galactic nuclei.
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OTHER HEADLINES Additional stories today
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Sea Launch awaits delivery of new gas deflector -- Sea Launch's prime contractor for launch system ground support has completed fabrication of a new gas deflector for the Zenit-3SL launch system. The massive structure is expected to arrive in mid-August at Sea Launch Home Port, where it will be installed at the stern of the Odyssey Launch Platform, beneath the launch pad.
Boeing submits TSAT production proposal -- The Boeing Company and its TEAM TSAT industry partners have submitted a proposal to the U.S. Air Force for the Development and Production phase of the Transformational Satellite Communications System Space Segment (TSAT) program.
Lockheed Martin team submits TSAT proposal -- The Lockheed Martin/Northrop Grumman team has submitted its proposal to design and build the Transformational Satellite Communications System (TSAT) Space Segment, the future global communications network for the U.S. Air Force that will provide seamless, protected communications for a wide range of defense and intelligence users.
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Mars rovers still hunkered down to weather dust storm
NASA's Mars rovers continued to be plagued by a global dust storm Saturday, but both of the golf cart-sized craft produced more power than they consumed this week, according to the mission's chief scientist.
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NASA to review alleged astronaut alcohol abuse
NASA managers Friday vowed to carry out a detailed follow-up study to flesh out an agency-ordered review of astronaut health care issues that included anonymous allegations of alcohol abuse in the astronaut corps. The initial review was ordered in the wake of the Lisa Nowak affair earlier this year but it appeared to raise more questions than it answered.
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Endeavour heads for launch amid troubles at NASA
Wrapping up a two-day flight readiness review, NASA has tentatively cleared the shuttle Endeavour for blastoff on a station assembly flight featuring educator-astronaut Barbara Morgan. NASA's inspector general, meanwhile, is investigating the apparent sabotage of an electronic black box. And managers had no immediate comment on a report citing alleged alcohol abuse by astronauts.
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NEWSWIRE Links to news across the internet
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Panel Finds Astronauts Flew While Intoxicated -- (Aviation Week & Space Technology) A panel reviewing astronaut health issues in the wake of the Lisa Nowak arrest has found that on at least two occasions astronauts were allowed to fly after flight surgeons and other astronauts warned they were so intoxicated that they posed a flight-safety risk.
Explosion at Mojave airport -- (AP) An explosion that killed three at a Mojave Desert airport during testing of a new space tourism vehicle has shaken a small community that prides itself as the hometown of the first private space launch.
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Interstellar chemistry gets more complex with discovery
Astronomers have found the largest negatively-charged molecule yet seen in space. The discovery of the third negatively-charged molecule, called an anion, in less than a year and the size of the latest anion will force a drastic revision of theoretical models of interstellar chemistry.
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Gases escaping from Jupiter's moon Io studied
Boston University researchers have published the first clear evidence of how gases from volcanoes on a tiny moon of Jupiter can lead to the largest visible gas cloud in the solar system.
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New NASA data to aid weather, climate research
There's an old saying, "You can't see the forest for the trees." When it comes to global climate change, it's not hard to spot the "trees" -- they're in the news headlines nearly every day. To see the "forest," however, scientists use satellite remote sensing.
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OTHER HEADLINES Additional stories today
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First GPS 2R satellite marks 10 years in service -- The first U.S. Air Force Global Positioning System Block 2R satellite, built by a team led by Lockheed Martin, has surpassed its 10-year design life of on-orbit service, providing the U.S. military and civil users world-wide with highly accurate navigation capabilities since 1997.
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Planets with four parents?
How many stars does it take to "raise" a planet? In our own solar system, it took only one -- our Sun. However, new research from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows that planets might sometimes form in systems with as many as four stars.
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Chandra telescope catches 'piranha' black holes
Supermassive black holes have been discovered to grow more rapidly in young galaxy clusters, according to new results from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. These "fast-track" supermassive black holes can have a big influence on the galaxies and clusters that they live in.
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OTHER HEADLINES Additional stories today
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Missile warning satellite payload completes test -- Lockheed Martin announced that the payload for the first Space-Based Infrared System geosynchronous orbit spacecraft has successfully completed thermal vacuum testing, a key milestone in preparation for launch of this first-of-its-kind satellite.
NASA announces next undersea exploration mission -- NASA will send three astronauts and a Constellation Program aerospace engineer into the ocean depths off the Florida coast from Aug. 6 to 15. They will test lunar exploration concepts and a suite of medical objectives for long-duration spaceflight.
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Satellite in-space servicing demo mission a success
The U.S. military's groundbreaking Orbital Express mission was shut down this weekend after concluding a series of tests to demonstrate autonomous satellite servicing techniques during more than four months in space.
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Station spacewalkers throw old hardware overboard
Perched on the end of the space station's robot arm directly below the international lab complex, astronaut Clay Anderson threw a refrigerator-size ammonia tank overboard Monday, pushing the 1,400-pound early ammonia servicer away behind the station to clear the way for future assembly work.
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NASA's twin Mars rovers braving severe dust storms
Having explored Mars for three-and-a-half years in what were missions originally designed for three months, NASA's Mars rovers are facing perhaps their biggest challenge.
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Star surface polluted by planetary debris
Looking at the chemical composition of stars that host planets, astronomers have found that while dwarf stars often show iron enrichment on their surface, giant stars do not. The astronomers think that the planetary debris falling onto the outer layer of the star produces a detectable effect in a dwarf star, but this pollution is diluted by the giant star and mixed into its interior.
FULL STORY
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Spitzer searches for the origins of life
Astronomers suspect the early Earth was a very harsh place. Temperatures were extreme, and the planet was constantly bombarded by cosmic debris. Many scientists believe that life's starting materials, or building blocks, must have been very resilient to have survived this tumultuous environment.
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Galaxy Evolution Explorer spies band of stars
The Galaxy Evolution Explorer's ultraviolet eyes have captured a globular star cluster, called NGC 362, in our own Milky Way galaxy. In this new image, the cluster appears next to stars from a more distant neighboring galaxy, known as the Small Magellanic Cloud.
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From dark obscurity: New Saturn moon comes to light
Like a hawk's eyes, the high resolution cameras on NASA's Cassini spacecraft have spotted yet another small, previously unknown moon circling giant Saturn and one which may indicate the existence of other small bodies in the same region.
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'Blue Needle' presents new challenge for theorists
Astronomers using the W. M. Keck Observatory and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to study disks of debris around stars have found one that is extremely lopsided. While scientists are accustomed to finding asymmetrical accumulations of dust and larger bodies around stars, the debris disk around a star known as HD 15115 has a needle-like shape.
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OTHER HEADLINES Additional stories today
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North American Galaxy 17 satellite goes operational -- Intelsat, Ltd., the world's leading provider of commercial satellite services, announced Thursday that its new Galaxy 17 satellite is fully operational and providing services. The satellite was launched by Arianespace in May.
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Satellites discover biggest collisions in the Universe
The orbiting X-ray telescopes XMM-Newton and Chandra have caught a pair of galaxy clusters merging into a giant cluster. The discovery adds to existing evidence that galaxy clusters can collide faster than previously thought.
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New system will help space station crews breathe easier
A new oxygen generation system tested last week aboard the International Space Station will allow the orbiting laboratory's crew size to increase in 2009.
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OTHER HEADLINES Additional stories today
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DMSP satellite operated in first-ever gyroless control -- Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Flight F15, launched in December 1999, successfully operated without navigation gyros recently, demonstrating a new promising capability that can extend portions of weather satellite missions even when critical gyro data is not available.
NASA gets doctors' support for human exploration -- NASA welcomes a vote of support for its future space exploration plans from the nation's largest organization of doctors. The American Medical Association recently passed a resolution in support of human space travel, citing "potential future benefits to medicine and advances in patient care."
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Saturn's old moon Iapetus retains its youthful figure
Saturn's distinctive moon Iapetus is cryogenically frozen in the equivalent of its teenage years. The moon has retained the youthful figure and bulging waistline it sported more than three billion years ago, scientists report.
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Charon: An ice machine in the ultimate deep freeze
Frigid geysers spewing material up through cracks in the crust of Pluto's companion Charon and recoating parts of its surface in ice crystals could be making this distant world into the equivalent of an outer solar system ice machine.
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Astronauts arrive at Cape to practice launch countdown
The seven space shuttle Endeavour astronauts jetted into Kennedy Space Center Monday evening for this week's launch countdown dress rehearsal, a key part of the crew's final pre-flight training regimen.
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OTHER HEADLINES Additional stories today
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Upper stage engine contract awarded for Ares rockets -- NASA has signed a $1.2 billion contract with Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne for design, development, testing and evaluation of the J-2X engine that will power the upper stages of the Ares I and Ares V launch vehicles.
MIT team designs sleek, skintight spacesuit -- In the 40 years that humans have been traveling into space, the suits they wear have changed very little. The bulky, gas-pressurized outfits give astronauts a bubble of protection, but their significant mass and the pressure itself severely limit mobility. MIT wants to change that.
Milstar satellites repositioned to enhance coverage -- A combined U.S. Air Force/Lockheed Martin team has successfully completed an on-orbit reconfiguration of the five-satellite Milstar constellation to maximize the system's capabilities to provide secure, reliable and robust communications to U.S. and Allied Forces around the globe.
NASA, Canada sign cooperation agreement -- At a ceremony held Monday at NASA Headquarters in Washington, NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale and Canadian Space Agency President and Chief Executive Officer Laurier J. Boisvert signed the official agreement that defines the terms of the agencies' cooperation on the James Webb Space Telescope.
NASA awards contract for land-imaging instrument -- NASA has selected Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. to develop the Operational Land Imager instrument for the Landsat Data Continuity Mission. The instrument will capture images in the visible and near-infrared spectra.
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Dwarf planet Eris is more massive than Pluto
Die-hard Pluto fans still seeking redemption for their demoted planet had cause for despair recently. New data shows that the dwarf planet Eris is 27 percent more massive than Pluto, thereby strengthening the decree last year that there are eight planets in the solar system and a growing list of dwarf planets.
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Evidence provided for supernova scenario
A unique set of observations has allowed astronomers to find direct evidence for the material that surrounded a star before it exploded as a Type Ia supernova. This strongly supports the scenario in which the explosion occurred in a system where a white dwarf is fed by a red giant.
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Endeavour in the morning
Following shuttle Endeavour's overnight rollout to the launch pad Wednesday, reporters and photographers were invited to Complex 39 to see the vehicle at sunrise. A collection of images is posted here.
PHOTO GALLERY
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Chandra examines star with possible mystery partner
When stars are more massive than about 8 times the Sun, they end their lives in a spectacular explosion called a supernova. The outer layers of the star are hurtled out into space at thousands of miles an hour, leaving a debris field of gas and dust.
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Astronomers: Most distant known galaxies found
Using natural "gravitational lenses," an international team of astronomers claim to have found the first traces of a population of the most distant galaxies yet seen-the light we see from them today left more than 13 billion years ago, when the universe was just 500 million years old.
FULL STORY
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Spitzer finds water vapor
on a hot, alien planet
A scorching-hot gas planet beyond our solar system is steaming up with water vapor, according to new observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
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Overhauled Endeavour on pad again after five years
Traveling at less than a mile per hour in the dark of night, space shuttle Endeavour journeyed to the launch pad Wednesday morning fresh from a major tune-up for its first flight in nearly five years.
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PREVIEW STORY
IMAGES: MORNING ON THE PAD
IMAGES: MORE ENDEAVOUR PHOTOS
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Survey says giant outer extrasolar planets are rare
Astronomers who used powerful telescopes in Arizona and Chile in a survey for planets around nearby stars have discovered that extrasolar planets more massive than Jupiter are extremely rare in other outer solar systems.
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Orbital Express test mission could resume after all
Senior military leaders have decided to postpone shutting down the Pentagon's Orbital Express mission to give U.S. Air Force officials a chance to propose additional demonstrations, the mission's program manager said Tuesday.
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Hubble catches Jupiter changing its stripes
Massive Jupiter is undergoing dramatic atmospheric changes that have never been seen before with the keen "eye" of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. These Hubble images reveal a rapid transformation in the shape and color of Jupiter's clouds near the equator, marking an entire face of the globe.
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Stellar fireworks are ablaze in galaxy, Hubble shows
Nearly 12.5 million light-years away in the dwarf galaxy NGC 4449 a veritable stellar "fireworks" is on display - here shown in exquisite detail through the eyes of the Hubble Space Telescope.
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Dawn asteroid probe won't launch until September
The scientist leading NASA's Dawn spacecraft on a three-billion-mile reconnaissance mission to explore a massive asteroid and a "dwarf planet" believed to harbor water has been designing the project for more than a decade. Liftoff was supposed to happen this weekend, yet troubles interfered. And officials Saturday ordered another launch delay -- all the way to September.
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MISSION STATUS CENTER
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Powerful HDTV satellite for DirecTV put into space
A high definition television broadcast satellite for DirecTV has thundered off the desert steppes of Kazakhstan Friday night aboard an International Launch Services Proton rocket. Liftoff came right on time at 9:16 p.m. EDT (0116 GMT). The Breeze M upper stage motor performed five firings over nine hours and put the DirecTV 10 spacecraft into the target orbit, with deployment of the satellite occurring at about 6:25 a.m. Saturday. The satellite will increase the number of local and national HDTV channels available to DirecTV subscribers.
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NASA gives two successful craft new assignments
Two NASA spacecraft now have new assignments after successfully completing their missions. The duo will make new observations of comets and characterize extrasolar planets. Stardust and Deep Impact will use their flight-proven hardware to perform new, previously unplanned, investigations.
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Chinese television satellite boosted into Earth orbit
China's most powerful rocket streaked into space Thursday with a communications satellite designed to broadcast television channels across Asia and the Pacific Ocean.
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NASA finds hydrocarbons on Saturn's moon Hyperion
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has revealed for the first time surface details of Saturn's moon Hyperion, including cup-like craters filled with hydrocarbons that may indicate more widespread presence in our solar system of basic chemicals necessary for life.
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Cassini scientists wring out details on spongy Hyperion
Scientists on NASA's Cassini mission to Saturn now have a better understanding of why the odd moon Hyperion has such an unusual appearance. The crucial factor in creating the strange, sponge-like appearance of Hyperion appears to be its extremely low density, say scientists in a research paper.
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Dust storm delays Mars rover's crater entry
A giant dust storm brewing for more than a week on Mars has become worse and is affecting surface operations of the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. Because the rovers depend on solar energy for survival, and the dust is partially blocking the sun, the storm is being watched closely by the rover scientists and engineers. Opportunity's entry into Victoria Crater is delayed for at least several days.
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In-space satellite servicing tests come to an end
Military officials will quietly put the revolutionary Orbital Express mission to sleep this week after three months of highly successful demonstrations to test the concept of robotic satellite-to-satellite refueling and in-space repairs.
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Atlantis arrives back home after cross-country trip
Space shuttle Atlantis returned home to the Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday morning, completing a two-day coast-to-coast piggyback ride atop a modified Boeing 747 ferrying jet that included rare stops in America's heartland.
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IMAGES: ARRIVAL IN FLORIDA
IMAGES: FERRY FLIGHT BEGINS
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Kosmos 3M rocket launches German imaging spacecraft
A German radar reconnaissance satellite vaulted into space from a Russian launch site Monday, beginning a mission to collect high-resolution imagery of nearly every location on Earth for up to ten years.
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Endeavour moves to the VAB for Aug. 7 launch
In preparation for its first spaceflight in nearly five years, space shuttle Endeavour was transported from its hangar to the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center Monday morning. The shuttle will be attached to its fuel tank and booster rockets inside the 52-story VAB. Rollout to pad 39A is scheduled for next week. Endeavour is targeted for launch to the space station August 7 at about 7 p.m. EDT.
IMAGES: ENDEAVOUR ROLLS TO VAB
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AIM spacecraft gets its first look night-shining clouds
A NASA satellite has captured the first occurrence this summer of mysterious iridescent polar clouds that form 50 miles above Earth's surface. The Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) spacecraft is the first satellite mission dedicated to the study of these unusual clouds.
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OTHER HEADLINES Additional stories today
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What happened before the Big Bang? -- New discoveries about another universe whose collapse appears to have given birth to the one we live in today was announced in the early on-line edition of the journal Nature Physics on Sunday.
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Read our earlier news archive page.
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