Spaceflight Now

Sunday: January 11, 2004		0810 GMT

First rocket launch of 2004 has successful outcome Riding the first space launch of 2004, a satellite dubbed the "Star of the South" successfully ascended into the sky Saturday night to relay communications for Brazil and other parts of the Americas. FULL STORY MISSION STATUS CENTER

Spirit rover stands up for its first drive The Spirit Mars rover completed its multi-part "stand-up" sequence Saturday, the most complex set of mechanical deployments ever attempted by a robotic spacecraft. Resting on its now unfolded, locked-in-place undercarriage and its six ridged wheels, Spirit should be ready to roll off its lander and onto the martian surface by early Wednesday morning East Coast time to begin its long-await exploration of Gusev Crater. FULL STORY MISSION STATUS CENTER - updates! PREVIOUS MISSION COVERAGE

Video coverage for subscribers only: VIDEO: SATURDAY'S BRIEFING ON ROVER STAND-UP ACTIVITIES QT VIDEO: LEARN MORE ABOUT FIRST MIN-TES INSTRUMENT IMAGES QT VIDEO: FRIDAY'S SCIENCE AND ROVER STAND-UP BRIEFING QT SUBSCRIBE NOW
Saturday: January 10, 2004		0526 GMT

Sections of station to be cordoned off in leak search The two-man crew aboard the International Space Station could be sequestered inside the Russian Zvezda module for several days beginning Wednesday as other portions of the orbiting complex are closed off to find a still-mysterious pressure leak. FULL STORY

Friday: January 9, 2004		0312 GMT

Reports: Bush to announce missions to moon and Mars Various Washington news reports, citing unnamed sources, say President George W. Bush will make a revolutionary speech about the U.S. space program next week. The stories say voyages to the moon will resume, followed by the first human expedition to Mars. ASSOCIATED PRESS ARTICLE REUTERS ARTICLE UPI ARTICLE

Efforts continue to clear airbag from rover driveway Engineers are having problems fully retracting partially collapsed airbags under the Spirit rover's landing platform that may hamper efforts to drive the vehicle straight off and onto the martian surface. Other exit routes are available, however, and mission manager Matt Wallace said he believed Spirit could simply drive over the airbag material with no problems. FULL STORY PHOTO: NEW COLOR IMAGERY DOWNLOAD: HIGH-RES VERSION OF POSTCARD MISSION STATUS CENTER - updates! PREVIOUS MISSION COVERAGE

Video coverage for subscribers only: VIDEO: EXPLORE THE NEW IMAGERY WITH EXPERT NARRATION QT VIDEO: THURSDAY'S SPIRIT HEALTH AND SCIENCE CONFERENCE QT VIDEO: WEDNESDAY'S SCIENCE AND ROVER STATUS BRIEFING QT SUBSCRIBE NOW
First rocket launch of 2004 to fly Saturday night A new satellite to link Brazil with its northern neighbors is awaiting launch Saturday night from a platform anchored in the remote stretches of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Liftoff of the Estrela do Sul 1 communications spacecraft aboard the Sea Launch Zenit 3SL rocket is scheduled for 11:13 p.m. EST (0413 GMT). MISSION STATUS CENTER

Borax minerals may have been key to start Earth life Astrobiologists, supported by NASA, have announced a major advance in understanding how life may have originated on Earth billions of years ago. FULL STORY

Thursday: January 8, 2004		0516 GMT

Mars Express mothership hears nothing from lander To the despair of European space officials, the Mars Express orbiter has failed to detect a signal from the Beagle 2 lander Wednesday in the first opportunity for the mothership to establish communications with the baby craft that should have touched down on the Martian surface on Christmas Day. MISSION STATUS CENTER - updates! PREVIOUS COVERAGE

Spirit's landing site more complex than first thought More ultra-sharp views of the floor of Gusev Crater show a surprisingly rolling, rock-strewn landscape that bears little resemblance to the relatively smooth, wind-swept lakebed investigators thought they saw in initial, low-resolution images. Lakebed deposits may well be present, a mission scientist said Wednesday, but they may be more difficult to find than first thought. FULL STORY

Chandra locates planetary ore in colliding galaxies NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has discovered rich deposits of neon, magnesium and silicon in a pair of colliding galaxies known as The Antennae. When the clouds containing these elements cool, an exceptionally high number of stars with planets should form. These results may foreshadow the fate of our Milky Way and its future collision with the Andromeda Galaxy. FULL STORY

Too fast, too furious: A galaxy's fatal plunge Trailing 200,000-light-year-long streamers of seething gas, a galaxy that was once like our Milky Way is being shredded as it plunges at 4.5 million miles per hour through the heart of a distant cluster of galaxies. In this unusually violent collision with ambient cluster gas, the galaxy is stripped down to its skeletal spiral arms as it is eviscerated of fresh hydrogen for making new stars. FULL STORY

Wednesday: January 7, 2004		0206 GMT

First color image from Spirit rover thrills scientists The sharpest picture ever taken on the surface of Mars was unveiled Tuesday, a remarkably detailed color mosaic showing the rock-strewn vista directly in front of the Spirit rover that stretches all the way to misty mesas and hills on the distant horizon. FULL STORY MISSION STATUS CENTER - updates! OVERVIEW OF THE PANCAM PHOTOS: FIRST COLOR IMAGE PHOTOS: CLOSE-UP VIEW OF TERRAIN PHOTOS: CLOSE-UP VIEW OF STREAKS IN SOIL PHOTOS: CLOSE-UP OF MARKS FROM AIRBAGS DOWNLOAD: 4 MB FULL-RES COLOR IMAGE

Video coverage for subscribers only: VIDEO: EXPLORE THE COLOR IMAGERY WITH EXPERT NARRATION QT VIDEO: TUESDAY'S IMAGERY AND ROVER STATUS NEWS CONFERENCE QT MORE: COMPLETE MARS EXPLORATION ROVER VIDEO REPORT SUBSCRIBE NOW
Space shuttle Columbia crew memorialized on Mars NASA has announced plans to name the landing site of the Mars Spirit Rover in honor of the astronauts who died in the tragic accident of the space shuttle Columbia in February. The area in the vast flatland of the Gusev Crater where Spirit landed this weekend will be called the Columbia Memorial Station. FULL STORY

New search about to begin for Europe's Mars lander A British spacecraft sent to the surface of Mars to look for evidence of past life has remained silent since its planned Christmas Day touchdown. On Wednesday, controllers will try a new tactic in their efforts to make contact with the Beagle 2 lander. MISSION STATUS CENTER - updates! PREVIOUS COVERAGE

Stardust sailing through calm after cometary storm "On January 2, comet Wild 2 gave up its particles but it did not do so without a fight," says Stardust project manager Tom Duxbury. "Our data indicates we flew through sheets of cometary particles that jostled the spacecraft and that on at least 10 occasions the first layer of our shielding was breached. Glad we had a couple more layers of the stuff." FULL STORY EARLIER COVERAGE

Video coverage for subscribers only: VIDEO: TUESDAY'S POST-FLYBY ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE REPORT QT VIDEO: STARDUST IMAGES PRODUCE THIS MOVIE OF COMET FLYBY QT VIDEO: SIMULATION OF IMPACTS THAT STARDUST SUSTAINED QT SUBSCRIBE NOW
Tuesday: January 6, 2004		0326 GMT

Spirit shows Mars in 3D A 3D panorama shot by Spirit's low-resolution navigation cameras was unveiled Monday and a full-resolution, color mosaic showing the terrain immediately in front of the rover is scheduled for downlink early Tuesday. FULL STORY PHOTOS: 3D PANORAMA UNVEILED DOWNLOAD: SEE THE FULL 3D PAN

Video coverage for subscribers only: VIDEO: RELIVE THRILL OF LANDING NIGHT IN HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE QT VIDEO: MONDAY'S SPIRIT ROVER AND IMAGERY STATUS BRIEFING QT VIDEO: MEET MEMBERS OF THE MISSION CONTROL "DREAM TEAM" QT SUBSCRIBE NOW
Suns of all ages possess comets, maybe planets When Comet Kudo-Fujikawa zipped past the Sun at a distance half that of Mercury's orbit last year, astronomers were watching. They observed the comet puffing out huge amounts of carbon, one of the key elements for life. The comet also emitted large amounts of water vapor as the Sun's heat baked its outer surface. FULL STORY

Hubble tells tale of record-breaking galaxy clusters An international team of astronomers, looking back in time, has found embryonic galaxies a mere 1.5 billion years after the birth of the cosmos, or 10 percent of the universe's present age. The "baby galaxies" reside in a still-developing cluster, the most distant proto-cluster ever found. FULL STORY

Young star caught speeding Astronomers have caught a newly formed star in the act of speeding. PV Ceph, located about 1400 light years away in the constellation Cepheus, is whizzing through space at a speed of 40,000 miles per hour -- some 40 times faster than a speeding bullet. And like a bullet, it left an exit wound when it ripped out of the star cluster where it formed. FULL STORY

Monday: January 5, 2004		0705 GMT

Spirit's high-gain antenna successfully deployed In another major milestone, the Spirit Mars rover's high-gain antenna was successfully deployed Sunday night and aimed at Earth. A few minutes before 12:30 a.m. EST Monday, the first direct-to-Earth communications session over the high-data-rate antenna began, prompting a now-familiar round of cheers and applause in mission control. FULL STORY SOL 2 PREVIEW STORY SPIRIT LANDS IN SCIENCE 'SWEET SPOT'

Video coverage for subscribers only: VIDEO: SUNDAY BRIEFING ON SPIRIT'S HEALTH AND LANDING SITE QT VIDEO: TAKE SIMULATED FLIGHT OVER THE GUSEV CRATER! QT VIDEO: BEHIND THE SCENES AT MOMENT OF TOUCHDOWN QT VIDEO: CHEERS AND SCREAMS WHEN SPIRIT CONFIRMED ALIVE QT MORE: COMPLETE MARS EXPLORATION ROVER VIDEO REPORT SUBSCRIBE NOW

News Archive
Dec. 29-Jan. 4: NASA's Spirit Rover successfully lands on Mars; Stardust intercepts comet to gather samples and scientists are elated with flyby results; China launches joint European science satellite; Proton launches Russian communications satellite.

Dec. 22-28: European invasion at Mars: Mars Express successfully enters orbit, but no one hears Beagle's bark; Israeli satellite rides Russian Soyuz into space; First Mercury orbiter shipped for prelaunch tests.

Dec. 15-21: Atlas rocket launches on Centennial of Flight; First images unveiled from SIRTF -- renamed the Spitzer Space Telescope; Boeing Delta 2 rocket soars with GPS satellite; Beagle 2 released to hunt for life on Martian surface.

Dec. 8-14: Spaceflight Now interviews station's resident crew; Japan's star-crossed Mars mission ends in failure; Boeing's big Delta 4 booster journeys to the launch pad; Why astrobiologists look to Saturn's moon Titan; Details of Saturn become visible to Cassini spacecraft; A giant cocoon discovered around massive young star; GALEX observatory captures galaxies galore.

Dec. 1-7: Atlas rocket successfully soars on secret mission; Atlas launch pad at Vandenberg getting extensive facelift; Mars Express snaps its first view of Red Planet; NASA scientists use radar to detect asteroid force; NASA cites progress in earthquake research.

Nov. 24-30: Japanese launch of spy satellites fails; Cheap method developed for solar system hunt; NASA successfully tests futuristic ion engine; Radiation monitoring device fails on Mars spacecraft.

Nov. 17-23: O'Keefe: time is right for new space vision; Shuttle Enterprise arrives at Smithsonian museum; Launch of Einstein's space experiment postponed; Feature story on Heavy-lifting version of Delta 4; Ulysses gives first 3-D observations of sun storms.

More news See our weekly archive of space news.

Apollo 12 tribute DVD set

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Fallen Heroes special patch

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Women of Space: Cool Careers on the Final Frontier is for girls, young women, and anyone else interested in learning about exciting careers in space exploration. Includes CD-ROM.

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Mars rover poster

This new poster features some of the best pictures from NASA's amazing Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity.

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Gemini 12

Gemini 12: The NASA Mission Reports covers the voyage of James Lovell and Buzz Aldrin that capped the Gemini program's efforts to prove the technologies and techniques that would be needed for the Apollo Moon landings. Includes CD-ROM.

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Soviet Space

For the first time ever available in the West. Rocket & Space Corporation Energia: a complete pictorial history of the Soviet/Russian Space Program from 1946 to the present day all in full color. Available from our store.

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Viking patch

This embroidered mission patch celebrates NASA's Viking Project which reached the Red Planet in 1976.

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Apollo 7 DVD

For 11 days the crew of Apollo 7 fought colds while they put the Apollo spacecraft through a workout, establishing confidence in the machine what would lead directly to the bold decision to send Apollo 8 to the moon just 2 months later.

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Soviet Space

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Viking patch

This embroidered mission patch celebrates NASA's Viking Project which reached the Red Planet in 1976.

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Apollo 7 DVD

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Gemini 12

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Apollo Collage

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

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STS-127 Patch

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

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Hubble Patch

The official embroidered patch for mission STS-125, the space shuttle's last planned service call to the Hubble Space Telescope, is available for purchase.

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Project Orion

The Orion crew exploration vehicle is NASA's first new human spacecraft developed since the space shuttle a quarter-century earlier. The capsule is one of the key elements of returning astronauts to the Moon.

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Fallen Heroes Patch Collection

The official patches from Apollo 1, the shuttle Challenger and Columbia crews are available in the store.

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