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Sunday:
July 30, 2000 | |
0033 GMT |
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Cannibal stars cause giant explosions in cluster galaxy
About 70 million years ago, when dinosaurs were still walking on the Earth, a series of violent thermo-nuclear explosions took place in a distant galaxy. After a very long travel across vast reaches of virtually empty space, dim light carrying the message about these events has finally reached us.
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Saturn-bound Huygens takes mid-course exam
The 6th Huygens in-flight checkout was executed as planned on Friday as the descent probe and its Cassini carrier craft speed toward a rendezvous with Saturn.
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DAILY BRIEFING Other stories making news today
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U.S. considers launch pact for North Korean satellites -- The Clinton administration will review a North Korean government proposal to drop development of its satellite launcher and ICBM system in return for western assistance in launching satellites into Earth orbit, sources said.
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Saturday:
July 29, 2000 | |
0820 GMT |
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Sea Launch bounces back, completes successful flight
Sea Launch earned redemption on Friday as the international consortium successfully returned to service after a four-month grounding from a botched mission in March.
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MISSION STATUS CENTER
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NASA's Terra satellite confirms less snowy winter
If you think there was less snow on the ground this spring than usual in parts of the Midwest and western United States, Terra satellite data agree with you. Early results from the MODIS instrument clearly observed a lot less snow cover than normal.
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Friday:
July 28, 2000 | |
1329 GMT |
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Death of a Comet
Astronomers report that Comet LINEAR, the brightest comet of the year, appears to have blown apart. The comet, which at one time was predicted to become visible to the naked eye, dramatically faded this week.
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NASA observatories keep their 'eyes' on comet
When NASA's two great observatories, Hubble and Chandra, recently observed comet LINEAR astronomers received some abrupt surprises. Researchers were able to catch the icy comet in a brief, violent outburst when it blew off a piece of its crust, like a cork popping off a champagne bottle.
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NASA goes back to the future with Mars rover plans
In 2003, NASA plans to launch a relative of the now-famous 1997 Mars Pathfinder rover. Using drop, bounce, and roll technology, this larger cousin is expected to reach the surface of the Red Planet in January, 2004 and begin the longest journey of scientific exploration ever undertaken across the surface of that alien world.
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Sea Launch to soar today
Sea Launch is set to make a crucial and widely watched return to service today as a Ukrainian-Russian Zenit 3SL rocket blasts off from an oceangoing platform in the Pacific carrying a telecommunications satellite for PanAmSat. This will be the international consortium's first flight since a failed launch four months ago.
MISSION STATUS CENTER
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DAILY BRIEFING Other stories making news today
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Is Earth life from another planet even possible? -- The theory that microbial life once came to Earth on a meteorite from another planet is beginning to be tested. This week a NASA rocket carried into space special microorganisms from research at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute (UMBI).
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Thursday:
July 27, 2000 | |
1157 GMT |
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Commercial module proposed for space station
The Boeing Company and Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center today announced a cooperative planning effort to market a commercial space module that could attach to the International Space Station.
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Mars probe sees frosted polar sand dunes in spring
Another spring has "sprung" in the northern hemisphere of Mars! Northern spring began in June, and as we approach August, sunlight is now illuminating most of the north polar cap each day. An image showing this has been taken by Mars Global Surveyor.
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Report: Research needed for human spaceflight
If the nation is serious about the manned exploration and development of space, then more attention must be focused now on research to study how weightlessness and reduced gravity would affect everything from power production to plumbing, says a recently published report funded by NASA.
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Ariane 4 rocket assembled for upcoming launch
After a shuffling its lineup of launches, Arianespace crews at the Guiana Space Center in South American jungle of French Guiana are gearing up for the planned August 17 blastoff of an Ariane 4 rocket carrying a pair of communications satellites.
MISSION STATUS CENTER
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DAILY BRIEFING Other stories making news today
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Space station truss segment one step closer to launch -- A day after the Zvezda service module and the other two components of the international space station already in orbit latched together high above Asia, a separate, but related team of technicians and engineers half-a-world away pulled another piece of the project out of its clean room high bay.
Hughes delivers final Milstar satellite payloads -- Hughes Space and Communications Co. has shipped to Lockheed Martin Space Systems the last in a series of powerful medium-data-rate (MDR) communications payloads for the U.S. Air Force Milstar satellites. The payload provides jam-resistant communications to the military.
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Wednesday:
July 26, 2000 | |
0330 GMT |
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Russia's Zvezda module docks to space station
The international space station gently docked with the new Zvezda command module Tuesday as the two spacecraft sailed high above Kazakstan, ending two years of delays and setting the stage for arrival of the lab's first permanent crew in November.
FULL STORY
MISSION STATUS CENTER
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Satellite trouble delays next Titan 4 rocket launch
A hush-hush problem with a top-secret satellite cargo has forced another postponement for the upcoming U.S. Air Force Titan 4B rocket launch from California, officials said Tuesday.
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Mondale on Arianespace: Emphasize GEO
This month 41-year old Leo Mondale takes the helm of Arianespace Inc., the European launch provider's U.S. arm. Veteran aerospace reporter Frank Sietzen, Jr. recently sat down with Mondale for the following interview.
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Next round of pre-flight tests begins for X-34
NASA's X-34 experimental rocket plane program has kicked off a new phase of tests to prepare it for flight. Following initial captive flight tests last year at Dryden Flight Research Center, the X-34 was towed behind a semi-truck and released to coast on the dry lakebed.
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DAILY BRIEFING Other stories making news today
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Lockheed Martin ships Air Force satellite for launch -- An Air Force Defense Satellite Communications System (DSCS) spacecraft with significant performance upgrades was recently shipped by prime contractor Lockheed Martin Space Systems to Cape Canaveral Air Station, Fla., for a launch tentatively scheduled in October.
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NEWSWIRE Links to news across the internet
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Russian flight controller drowned (Houston Chronicle) -- Webster police are investigating the drowning of an unnamed 38-year-old Russian flight controller who was found dead in a Webster apartment complex swimming pool Tuesday night.
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Tuesday:
July 25, 2000 | |
0620 GMT |
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Zvezda module to dock with space station tonight
The command module Zvezda, Russian's centerpiece contribution to the international space station, is poised to dock with the outpost high above Earth tonight. The module will serve as the early crew living quarters.
FULL STORY
MISSION STATUS CENTER
SPACE STATION INDEX
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Space 'bugs' to test alien microbe theory
The theory that microbial life once came to Earth on a meteorite from another planet will be tested on Wednesday when a NASA rocket carries into space special microorganisms from research at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute.
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Sea Launch ready to go
With its command vessel and launch platform now at the equator, Sea Launch is preparing for its return-to-flight mission on Friday to place PanAmSat's PAS-9 communications satellite into space. Sea Launch failed on its most recent flight in March.
MISSION STATUS CENTER
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DAILY BRIEFING Other stories making news today
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ILS announces over $1 billion in new orders -- International Launch Services (ILS) announced yesterday a total of over $1 billion in new launch services business from orders taken year-to-date. The new business includes launch orders for a mix of Proton and Atlas rockets.
Galileo beaming home data from Ganymede encounter -- NASA's Galileo spacecraft is about 507 million miles from Earth this week, continuing its trek around Jupiter, the solar system's largest planet. The probe spends the week playing back science data that is stored on its onboard tape recorder from May's flyby of Ganymede, the largest of Jupiter's moons.
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Monday:
July 24, 2000 | |
0731 GMT |
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10 billion billion billion megaton bomb in space
Astronomers have found a star that will produce one of the biggest explosions in our Universe. The star will explode within the next 200 million years. It is the first star of its kind to be found and may hold the clues to where the stuff that makes up our bodies comes from and perhaps to the future of the Universe itself.
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Newly-launched military research satellite healthy
The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory's Mightysat 2.1 technology demonstration spacecraft is making good progress in its orbital checkout after four days circling Earth, officials reported Sunday.
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DAILY BRIEFING Other stories making news today
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NASA detects rapid thinning of Greenland's coastal ice -- Scientists who want to monitor the state of our global climate may have to look no farther than the coastal ice that surrounds the Earth's largest island. A NASA study of Greenland's ice sheet reveals that it is rapidly thinning at a rate of more than three feet per year in some areas.
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