Spaceflight Now

Sunday: March 23, 2003		0115 GMT

Replacement Canadian satellite to ride Proton The Canadian Anik F1R communications satellite -- a craft recently ordered to replace its namesake that suffered the effects of a design flaw in space -- will be launched aboard a Russian Proton rocket, officials have announced. FULL STORY

Next-generation satellite ordered for Malaysia Binariang Satellite Systems has bought a high-power commercial communications spacecraft from Boeing. The new Boeing 601HP satellite, designated MEASAT-3, will join two other craft in orbit for the Malaysia-East Asia Satellite network. FULL STORY

Space Command cancels Guardian Challenge Air Force Space Command officials have canceled this year's Guardian Challenge, the annual space warfighter competition held at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, because the command needs its resources focused on day-to-day operations. FULL STORY

Saturday: March 22, 2003		0442 GMT

NASA's Columbia mishap team reorganized NASA has announced a revamped management team to oversee the agency's internal investigation of the Columbia disaster in accordance with a request made late last month by the independent Columbia Accident Investigation Board. FULL STORY

NASA to build a five-satellite research mission A swarm of spacecraft, designed to fly through the space storms that cause aurora, has been chosen as the next mission in NASA's Medium-class Explorer program. The Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) mission is scheduled to be launched in 2007. FULL STORY

Friday: March 21, 2003		0502 GMT

Weighing a black hole at the edge of the universe For the first time, astronomers have weighed a black hole at the furthest reaches of the universe. A team of astronomers from Canada and the United Kingdom studied infrared light from the most distant quasar known, and found that the quasar contains a black hole one quadrillion times as massive as the Earth. FULL STORY

Artemis satellite relays first images for Envisat The first satellite-relayed images from Envisat have been received, via the Artemis data-relay spacecraft in geostationary orbit. The images represent twin triumphs for the European Space Agency. FULL STORY

Thursday: March 20, 2003		0320 GMT

Data recorder recovered; could hold key insights Search crews walking a grid near Hemphill, Texas, have found the shuttle Columbia's orbiter experiments recorder, or OEX, a tape recorder that stored key data about the shuttle's performance during re-entry. FULL STORY

Race to gamma ray burst reveals gigantic explosion Scientists arriving on the scene of a gamma ray burst, just moments after the explosion, have witnessed the death of a gigantic star and the birth of something monstrous in its place, quite possibly a brand-new, spinning black hole. FULL STORY

Wednesday: March 19, 2003		1215 GMT

Hearing shows work to piece together known data As investigators increasingly focus on a breach at or just behind the leading edge of the shuttle Columbia's left wing as the root cause of the Feb. 1 disaster, engineers poring over telemetry from the doomed ship are zeroing in on exactly where the breach must have occurred - and how it must have propagated - to explain the orbiter's response to the resulting aerodynamic forces that ultimately ripped the ship apart. FULL STORY

U.S. military officials talk space dominance Anybody who goes against the massive space capability of the U.S. military "is in for a tough go," Air Force Maj. Gen. Franklin J. "Judd" Blaisdell told reporters during a recent Pentagon press briefing. FULL STORY

Assembly begins for NASA's Mercury space probe Start the countdown clock at one year: the effort to assemble and test the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft, set to embark next March on an historic voyage to the innermost planet, is well under way. FULL STORY

Tuesday: March 18, 2003		1400 GMT

Hearing focuses on debris, breakup mechanics A NASA flight director told the Columbia Accident Investigation Board Monday he was amazed the doomed spacecraft was able to continue flying in relatively normal fashion for nearly 10 minutes while shedding multiple pieces of flaming debris as a plume of superheated air burned its way into the stricken ship's left wing. FULL STORY INVESTIGATION STATUS CENTER

Video coverage for subscribers only: VIDEO: THE BOARD HEARS FROM DR WILLIAM AILOR QT VIDEO: USA'S DOUG WHITE & NASA'S PAUL HILL TESTIFY QT SUBSCRIBE NOW
Pulsar bursts coming from beachball-sized structures In a major breakthrough for understanding what one of them calls "the most exotic environment in the Universe," a team of astronomers has discovered that powerful radio bursts in pulsars are generated by structures as small as a beach ball. FULL STORY

Worried about asteroid-ocean impacts? The idea that even small asteroids can create hazardous tsunamis may at last be pretty well washed up. Small asteroids do not make great ocean waves that will devastate coastal areas for miles inland, according to both a recently released 1968 U.S. Naval Research report on explosion-generated tsunamis and terrestrial evidence. FULL STORY

Monday: March 17, 2003		0122 GMT

Pushing back frontiers of Universe to era of first stars Astronomers have used three of the most powerful telescopes in existence to identify some of the farthest galaxies yet seen. But at the same time, they have encountered a cosmic conundrum: it looks as if there were fewer galaxies forming stars at this early stage in the history of the Universe than in the more recent past. FULL STORY

Pinatubo eruption provides test of climate pattern A recent NASA-funded study has linked the 1991 eruption of the Mount Pinatubo to a strengthening of a climate pattern called the Arctic Oscillation. For two years following the volcanic eruption, the Arctic Oscillation caused winter warming over land areas in the high and middle latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, despite a cooling effect from volcanic particles that blocked sunlight. FULL STORY

News Archive
March 10-16: Board studies wing edge, wind shear, foam repair; Debris may strengthen breach scenario; Readdy says 'no rationale' for spy satellite inspection of Columbia; Data shows autopilot on through last transmission; Delta 4 rocket successfully begins military service; Hubble discovers an evaporating planet.

March 3-9: Investigators begin public hearings into accident; Plume may have entered wheel well from within wing; Delta 4's first Air Force launch scrubbed; China reportedly planning lunar exploration; Team pegs brightness of history's brightest star.

Feb. 24-March 2: Video shows Columbia crew unaware of impending disaster; Flight controllers downplay emails about Columbia; Europe pushes ahead with its new Vega rocket; Massive gas cloud around Jupiter revealed; Pioneer 10 sends last signal; Remnants of ancient stars found in Earth's atmosphere.

Feb. 17-23: New data shows Columbia's state in final moments; Crew agrees manned space in 'very serious situation'; Melting snow could be cause of gullies on Mars; Missing mass exists as warm intergalactic fog; Where's the coolest place in the Universe?

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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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The ultimate Apollo 11 DVD

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The official embroidered patch for shuttle Endeavour's flight to finish building Japanese section of the space station.

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