Spaceflight Now

Sunday: December 29, 2002		0001 GMT

Boeing to build third Wideband Gapfiller Satellite Boeing has been awarded a U.S. Air Force contract option to build a third satellite in the Wideband Gapfiller Satellite program. Each satellite provides the United States and its allies with increased space-based communications capability. FULL STORY

Space station Expedition 10 backup crew named Astronauts Jeffrey Williams, Sunita Williams and Russian cosmonaut Konstantin Kozeev have been appointed to serve as the backup crew for the International Space Station Expedition 10. FULL STORY

Saturday: December 28, 2002		0258 GMT

Schools' radio-telescope project goes international Most students at Hohenfels High School in Germany are from U.S. military families posted overseas. Sometimes America can seem far away. This month, the 11th and 12th graders in Joyce Dusenberry's astronomy class at the school made that distance shrink. From their classroom computer, they pointed a large telescope in California to study a place that's really far away: Jupiter. FULL STORY

NASA awards contracts for remote sensing technology NASA has awarded funding for nine new investigations for technology development of innovative Earth Science remote-sensing instruments, under the Instrument Incubator Program (IIP), to support the mission to understand and protect our home planet. FULL STORY

Friday: December 27, 2002		0012 GMT

Giant X-ray disk sheds light on elliptical galaxies Astronomers have discovered the largest disk of hot, X-ray emitting gas ever observed in the universe: At 90,000 light years in diameter, it's about 100,000 times the size of any comparable object. The disk, spinning through a distant galaxy, is more than just an interstellar oddity, the researchers say. The object could offer new information about the way certain galaxies form and evolve. FULL STORY

Thursday: December 26, 2002		0100 GMT

Integral's first look at the gamma-ray Universe The high-energy Universe is a violent place of exploding stars and their collapsed remnants such as the ultra-compressed neutron stars and, at the most extreme, all-consuming black holes. These celestial objects create X-rays and gamma rays that are many times more powerful than the optical radiation we can see with our eyes and optical telescopes. FULL STORY

Artemis nearly there The end of the final stage of the Artemis recovery is now in sight. Only 700 km orbital height and about 45 days now remain before Artemis will reach geostationary orbit. Artemis is now expected to be in its working position by the end of January 2003. FULL STORY

Proton lofts navigation trio A Russian Proton rocket and its Block DM upper stage launched three military navigation satellites for the GLONASS constellation Wednesday. Nearly a month ago, a similar upper stage malfunctioned and left a commercial communications satellite in the wrong orbit. Russian officials were able to exonerate the hardware used in Wednesday's mission.

Wednesday: December 25, 2002		0400 GMT

Which ringed planet? Don't worry - you are not the only one who thought this was a nice amateur photo of planet Saturn, Lord of the Rings in our Solar System! But then the relative brightness and positions of the moons may appear somewhat unfamiliar...and the ring system does look unusually bright when compared to the planetary disk? Well, it is not Saturn. FULL STORY

Tuesday: December 24, 2002		1500 GMT

First elusive 'dark' gamma-ray burst caught For the first time, scientists -- racing the clock -- have snapped a photo of an unusual type of gamma-ray-burst event one minute after the explosion. They captured a particularly fast-fading type of "dark" burst, which comprises about half of all gamma-ray bursts. FULL STORY

Russia launches secret military payload Delayed from October after a similar Soyuz rocket exploded at Russia's Plesetsk Cosmodrome, a Molniya M was successfully launched from there Tuesday carrying a classified military cargo dubbed Cosmos 2393. Liftoff reportedly occurred at 1220 GMT (7:20 a.m. EST). WORLDWIDE LAUNCH SCHEDULE

Monday: December 23, 2002		0400 GMT

NASA tests future flight vehicle concepts A hybrid rocket carrying futuristic space vehicle concepts completed its first flight last week from Wallops Island. The rocket, built by Lockheed Martin, was used to launch a NASA designed payload containing three test articles. FULL STORY

News Archive
Dec. 16-22: Clouds discovered at south pole of Saturn's moon Titan; Workhorse Ariane 4 rocket flies its next to last mission; Titan 2 off till January; Second Delta 4 rocket erected on the launch pad; Young star cluster aglow with mysterious cloud; Six satellite cargos ride Dnepr booster to space.

Dec. 9-15: New Ariane 5 fails; International observatory put into orbit to study Earth; Morgan named to upcoming shuttle mission; Chandra reveals pileup on cosmic speedway; NEAR Shoemaker's silent treatment; Hubble watches galaxies in a destructive dance.

Dec. 2-8: Endeavour shuttles station residents back to Earth; Hubble precisely measures distant planet's true mass; NASA communications relay craft rides Atlas into space; Saturn's moon Titan may hold clues to origin of life; Double bubble in neighboring galaxy.
More news See our weekly archive of space news.

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Apollo 11 special patch

Special collectors' patch marking the 35th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 moon landing is now available.

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Inside Apollo mission control

An insider's view of how Apollo flight controllers operated and just what they faced when events were crucial.

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The ultimate Apollo 11 DVD

This exceptional chronicle of the historic Apollo 11 lunar landing mission features new digital transfers of film and television coverage unmatched by any other.

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Next ISS crew

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Ares 1-X Patch

The official embroidered patch for the Ares 1-X rocket test flight, is available for purchase.

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This beautiful one piece set features the Apollo program emblem surrounded by the individual mission logos.

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Project Orion

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