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News Archive: Sept. 1-30 |
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Space shuttle Discovery moved to launch pad
A powerful Apollo-era crawler-transporter slowly carried the shuttle Discovery from the Vehicle Assembly Building to launch complex 39A Sunday for work to ready the ship for blastoff Oct. 23 on a complex space station assembly mission.
 FULL STORY
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Additional coverage for subscribers:
 VIDEO:
CRANE HOISTS DISCOVERY FOR MATING TO TANK PLAY
VIDEO:
DISCOVERY MOVED TO THE VEHICLE ASSEMBLY BUILDING PLAY
VIDEO:
HYDRAULIC SEALS REPLACED ON LANDING GEAR STRUT PLAY
VIDEO:
FUEL TANK ATTACHED TO SOLID ROCKET BOOSTERS PLAY
VIDEO:
FOAM REMOVED FROM FUEL TANK FEEDLINE BRACKETS PLAY
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Dawn spacecraft begins mission of exploration
Seeking to explore the uncharted worlds of Vesta and Ceres in the heart of the asteroid belt, NASA's Dawn space probe rocketed off planet Earth at sunrise Thursday to begin the three-billion-mile adventure that is counting on the craft's exotic ion engines to drive the eight-year trek.
FULL STORY
OUR PREVIEW STORY
MISSION STATUS CENTER
IMAGES: LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY
IMAGES: MORE LAUNCH DAY PHOTOS
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Additional coverage for subscribers:
VIDEO:
DELTA 2 ROCKET LAUNCHES DAWN PLAY
VIDEO:
LAUNCH AS SEEN FROM JETTY PARK PIER PLAY
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DAWN'S DEPLOYMENT FROM ROCKET ANNOUNCED PLAY
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POST-FLIGHT COMMENTS FROM LAUNCH MANAGER PLAY
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PAD'S MOBILE GANTRY ROLLED BACK FOR LAUNCH PLAY
VIDEO:
THE PRE-LAUNCH NEWS CONFERENCE PLAY
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OVERVIEW OF DAWN'S SCIENCE MISSION PLAY
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NARRATED HIGHLIGHTS OF DAWN'S LAUNCH PREPS PLAY
VIDEO:
NARRATED HIGHLIGHTS OF DELTA 2 ROCKET PREPS PLAY
MORE:
FULL VIDEO COVERAGE OF DAWN MISSION PLAY
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Opportunity rover reaches first target inside crater
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has reached its science team's first destination for the rover inside Victoria Crater, information received from Mars late Tuesday confirms.
FULL STORY
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Shining light on objects 'weirder than black holes'
Researchers from Duke University and the University of Cambridge think there is a way to determine whether some black holes are not actually black. "It would show that nature has surprises even weirder than black holes," says one researcher.
FULL STORY
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Space tether experiment
hits major snag
A small capsule the size of a beach ball was stranded in Earth orbit early Tuesday after an attempt to return the craft from space via a revolutionary technique using a nearly 20-mile-long tether.
FULL STORY
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Orphan stars discovered in long galaxy tail
Astronomers have found evidence that stars have been forming in a long tail of gas that extends well outside its parent galaxy. This discovery suggests that such "orphan" stars may be much more prevalent than previously thought.
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Scientists model cornucopia of Earth-sized planets
In the Star Wars movies fictional planets are covered with forests, oceans, deserts, and volcanoes. But new models from a team of MIT, NASA, and Carnegie scientists begin to describe an even wider range of Earth-size planets that astronomers might actually be able to find in the near future.
FULL STORY
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OTHER HEADLINES Additional stories today
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IMAX returns to chronicle Hubble Space Telescope -- IMAX Corporation and Warner Bros. Pictures announced Monday that, in cooperation with NASA, the IMAX 3D camera is scheduled to return to space in 2008 aboard the space shuttle during STS-125 for production of a new film. Set for release in early 2010, IMAX will chronicle the life story of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Team says impact to blame for Ice Age extinctions -- What caused the extinction of mammoths and the decline of Stone Age people about 13,000 years ago remains hotly debated. Overhunting by Paleoindians, climate change and disease lead the list of probable causes. But an idea once considered a little out there is now hitting closer to home.
Delta rocket picked to launch Italian satellite -- The Boeing Company, through its commercial launch business, has been awarded a contract to launch the third COSMO-Skymed commercial satellite for Thales Alenia Space Italia, the prime contractor of the Italian Space Agency.
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Discovery takes first step on road to the launch pad
Space shuttle Discovery took a short but meaningful trip Sunday afternoon, leaving its Kennedy Space Center processing hangar and moving into the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building in preparation for liftoff October 23.
FULL STORY
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Spacecraft finds possible cave skylights on Mars
NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has discovered entrances to seven possible caves on the slopes of a Martian volcano. The find is fueling interest in potential underground habitats and sparking searches for caverns elsewhere on the Red Planet.
FULL STORY
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Mars orbiter gives insights about water and climate
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is examining several features on Mars that address the role of water at different times in Martian history. Features examined with the orbiter's advanced instruments include material deposited in two gullies within the past eight years.
FULL STORY
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Satellite mission to detect black holes reborn
NASA has given the go-ahead to restart an astrophysics mission that will provide a greater capability for using high-energy X-rays to detect black holes than any existing instrument has.
FULL STORY
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Shuttle launch date stays on track after quick repairs
Work to replace suspect hydraulic seals in the shuttle Discovery's right main landing gear is going smoothly and barring additional problems, NASA managers said Thursday, the shuttle should be ready for blastoff Oct. 23 as originally planned.
FULL STORY
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Planet found that offers clues to Earth's future
An international team of astronomers has announced the first discovery of a planet orbiting a star near the end of its life. The announcement, culminating seven years of research, was just published in the journal Nature.
FULL STORY
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A warm south pole?
Yes, on Neptune!
Scientists have found that Neptune's south pole is much hotter than the rest of the planet. They have published the first temperature maps of the lowest portion of Neptune's atmosphere, which show that this warm south pole is providing an avenue for methane to escape out of the deep atmosphere.
FULL STORY
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Astronomers will trace planet formation with neon
Astronomers have observed neon in disks of dust and gas swirling around sunlike stars for the first time. They say that neon could show which stars retain their surrounding dust-and-gas disks needed to form planets and which stars might already have formed planets.
FULL STORY
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Odyssey returning to service after precaution
The team operating NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter is returning the healthy spacecraft to usual activities this week after a precautionary status of reduced activity that the orbiter entered last week.
FULL STORY
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Delta 2 rocket launches to new success record
A sophisticated new Earth-imaging satellite with sharp eyes, nimble moves and a broad memory was launched Tuesday, riding the ever-dependable Delta 2 rocket into orbit during a flawless ascent that set a new reliability mark for modern space boosters.
FULL STORY
MISSION STATUS CENTER - live updates!
IMAGES: LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY
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China and Brazil team up to launch remote sensing craft
A joint mission developed by China and Brazil was shot into an orbit circling Earth's poles to snap detailed images of the globe during an early Wednesday launch from China's northeastern space base.
FULL STORY
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Repairs ordered for leaky shuttle landing gear seals
NASA managers Monday opted to replace suspect seals in the hydraulic system of the shuttle Discovery's right main landing gear strut, work that could delay launch on a space station assembly mission by a few days.
FULL STORY
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Additional coverage for subscribers:
VIDEO:
STS-120 MISSION OVERVIEW BRIEFING PART 1 | PART 2
VIDEO:
PREVIEW OF THE MISSION'S FIVE SPACEWALKS PLAY
VIDEO:
DISCOVERY'S ASTRONAUTS MEET THE PRESS PLAY
VIDEO:
BRIEFING ON SHUTTLE AND ISS PROGRAMS PLAY
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Problem could delay shuttle Discovery's launch
Engineers are assessing an apparent hydraulic leak in the shuttle Discovery's right-side main landing gear strut. If internal seals have to be replaced, launch on a space station assembly mission could slip a few days, officials said Sunday, but they cautioned that it's not yet clear how long such repairs might actually take.
FULL STORY
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Recoverable craft shot into space for science mission
Russia launched a recoverable capsule crammed with more than 1,300 pounds of international scientific and engineering test experiments on Friday to begin a 12-day excursion in space.
FULL STORY
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Moon orbiter successfully launched from Earth
A Japanese space probe bound for lunar orbit has been launched on the first leg of a $480 million mission to search for answers to fundamental questions about the moon's enigmatic history.
FULL STORY
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Cassini's must-see pictures of Saturn's moon Iapetus
Scientists on the Cassini mission are poring through hundreds of images returned from Monday's flyby of Saturn's two-toned moon Iapetus. Pictures show the moon's yin and yang -- a white hemisphere resembling snow, and the other as black as tar.
FULL STORY
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Japan prepares lunar spacecraft for blastoff
Heralded as the most advanced lunar exploration mission in more than 30 years, a sophisticated Japanese spacecraft is on the cusp of launching the first wave of a scientific assault on the moon to probe its history and prepare for future human voyages to Earth's celestial companion.
FULL STORY
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Dawn asteroid probe back
on the launch pad again
The long-awaited voyage of NASA's Dawn space probe to rendezvous with a pair of small worlds in the asteroid belt has returned to the launching pad for departure from Earth in two weeks' time.
FULL STORY
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Rocket puts secret Russian satellite into polar orbit
A Russian military satellite was lobbed into orbit aboard a Kosmos 3M rocket during a Tuesday launch from the nation's northern launch site, according to Russian media reports.
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NASA planning spacewalk to practice shuttle repairs
NASA managers are expected to add a fifth spacewalk to the shuttle Discovery's upcoming space station assembly mission, officials say. The additional EVA will be devoted to testing a heat-shield repair tool that could prove useful in the event of damage like the tile gouge experienced during the last shuttle mission.
FULL STORY
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Mars rovers survive storms, ready for next objectives
Two months after sky-darkening dust from severe storms nearly killed NASA's Mars exploration rovers, the solar powered robots are awake and ready to continue their mission.
FULL STORY
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Cassini prepares to fly by walnut-shaped moon
Cassini will make its only close flyby of Saturn's odd, two-toned, walnut-shaped moon Iapetus on Monday at about 1,000 miles from the surface. This flyby will be 100 times closer than Cassini's 2004 encounter, and will be the last time the spacecraft will aim its instruments at this moon.
FULL STORY
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'Lego-block' galaxies found in early universe
NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes have joined forces to discover nine of the smallest, faintest, most compact galaxies ever observed in the distant universe. Blazing with the brilliance of millions of stars, each of the newly discovered galaxies is 100 to 1,000 times smaller than our Milky Way galaxy.
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Mars-bound Phoenix lander checks out gear
Two crucial tools for a successful landing of America's latest mission to Mars, the radar and UHF radio on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, have passed in-flight checkouts.
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Russian Proton rocket fails just after liftoff
Two minutes after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Wednesday night, a Russian heavy-lifting Proton rocket suffered a malfunction of its second stage, leading to destruction of a Japanese satellite payload riding aboard the booster.
FULL STORY - updated
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Fasten your seat belts, Titan turbulence ahead
Ever spilled your drink on an airline due to turbulence? Researchers on both sides of the Atlantic are finding new ways to understand the phenomenon - both in Earth's atmosphere and in that of Saturn's moon, Titan, aided by Huygens probe data. The study of one is helping the other.
FULL STORY
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Scientists find black holes in feeding frenzy
Two University of Hawaii astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope believe they have identified what makes at least some quasars shine: the black hole at the center of a massive galaxy with little gas of its own is gobbling up material from a colliding gas-rich galaxy.
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Globalstar signs launch deal with Arianespace
Globalstar has signed a launch agreement with Arianespace for the launch of the company's second-generation satellite constellation using Soyuz rockets.
FULL STORY
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Demonstration signal added to GPS satellite
A Lockheed Martin-led team has begun production activities to reconfigure a modernized Global Positioning System Block 2R satellite to include a new demonstration payload that will temporarily transmit a third civil signal following a successful review with the Air Force.
FULL STORY
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India's large satellite launcher returns to flight
It was a day of redemption for India's space program Sunday, when the nation's most powerful rocket returned to the skies for the first time since a booster engine failure doomed a launch last year.
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Scientists find elusive waves in Sun's corona
Scientists for the first time have observed elusive oscillations in the Sun's corona, known as Alfven waves, that transport energy outward from the surface of the Sun. The discovery is expected to give researchers more insight into the fundamental behavior of solar magnetic fields, eventually leading to a fuller understanding of how the Sun affects Earth and the solar system.
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Read our earlier news archive page.
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