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News Archive: April 1-30; May 1-31; June 1-30; July 1-31; Aug. 1-31; Sept. 1-30; Oct. 1-31; Nov. 1-30; Dec. 1-31 |
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NASA releases new report on the Columbia tragedy
NASA released a detailed engineering study Tuesday outlining lessons learned about astronaut survival based on an analysis of the 2003 Columbia disaster. The study does not provide any significant new details about the fate of Columbia's crew, but a new timeline shows the pilots attempted to troubleshoot a cascade of problems in the final moments before the spacecraft's computers lost control.
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STS-107 STORY ARCHIVE
COVERAGE FROM FEBRUARY 1
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Scientists find 'missing' clues to Mars mysteries
Researchers using a powerful instrument aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have found a long-sought-after mineral on the Martian surface and, with it, unexpected clues to the Red Planet's watery past.
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NASA's Kepler spacecraft ready to ship to Florida -- Engineers are getting ready to pack NASA's Kepler spacecraft into a container and ship it off to its launch site at Cape Canaveral. The mission, scheduled to launch on March 5, will seek to answer an age-old question -- are there other Earths in space?
NASA study links severe storm increases, global warming -- The frequency of extremely high clouds in Earth's tropics -- the type associated with severe storms and rainfall -- is increasing as a result of global warming, according to a study by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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Russia finishes year by launching three satellites
Three new satellites blasted off from a frigid launch pad in Kazakhstan Thursday, bolstering Russia's space navigation system to help provide continuous coverage over its territory. It marked the final announced space launch of 2008, punctuating the global industry's most successful year since 2000.
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OUR LAUNCH LOG
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NASA calls on commercial firms to serve space station
NASA has awarded contracts to Orbital Sciences and SpaceX to provide commercial delivery of cargo to the international space station after the space shuttle's retirement in 2010. The companies are developing spacecraft and rockets for commercial resupply missions in the post-shuttle era. Orbital received an order for 8 flights valued at $1.9 billion and SpaceX's order includes 12 flights valued at $1.6 billion.
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CONTRACT PREVIEW STORY
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China launches for record 11th time in 2008
China launched a new geostationary weather satellite early Tuesday, marking the country's 11th successful space launch of the year and setting a new record for Chinese space activity.
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Amid uncertainty, NASA plans for Ares 1-X test flight
As the incoming Obama administration considers whether to accelerate development of the Ares 1 rocket that will replace the space shuttle - or possibly change course and switch to a different system or even extend shuttle operations - NASA is pressing ahead with plans to launch a critical sub-orbital test flight to show off the new rocket and collect valuable engineering data.
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Station crew ventures outside for spacewalk
Space station commander Mike Fincke and flight engineer Yury Lonchakov made a five-hour, 38-minute spacewalk Monday night, lasting from 7:51 p.m. to 1:29 a.m. EST to install an instrument that will measure the electrical environment around the station and to install and remove space exposure experiments. One package could not be hooked up and was brought back inside.
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Eutelsat's unprecedented launch twice as sweet
One of the world's top commercial satellite operators used a heavy-lift Ariane 5 rocket to successfully get two of its new communications spacecraft into orbit Saturday evening. It was a risky proposition for Eutelsat to entrust a pair of its satellites to just one rocket. Never before had the company put two pricey birds on a single launch.
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OUR ARIANE LAUNCH ARCHIVE
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What came before the Big Bang? -- A question that has been pondered by scientists and philosophers alike could soon be answered, thanks to a mathematical model that explains an anomaly in the early Universe.
Wobbly planets could reveal Earthlike moons -- Instead of looking for potentially habitable planets around stars outside our Solar System, University College London astronomer David Kipping is searching for moons.
Red giants to probe history of Milky Way -- A new project based on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III will study more than 100,000 Milky Way red giant stars to help understand the formation history of our Galaxy.
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Solar spacecraft inherits a new launch opportunity
The delay of NASA's next Mars mission will allow an $800 million solar observatory to move out of launch limbo and into an opening in the Atlas 5 rocket's manifest next October.
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OUR ATLAS ROCKET ARCHIVE
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Jupiter's largest moon caught going to 'dark side'
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has caught Jupiter's moon Ganymede playing a game of "peek-a-boo." In this crisp Hubble image, Ganymede is shown just before it ducks behind the giant planet.
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Seeing the shape of material around black holes
Black holes can now be thought of as donut holes. The shape of material around black holes has been seen for the first time: an analysis of over 200 active galactic nuclei - cores of galaxies powered by disks of hot material feeding a super-massive black hole - shows that all have a consistent, ordered physical structure that seems to be independent of the black hole's size.
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NASA administrator hails agreement with Ad Astra -- NASA and Ad Astra Rocket Company of Webster, Texas, have signed a Space Act Agreement that could lead to the testing of a new plasma-based space propulsion technology on the International Space Station. The Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) engine initially was studied by NASA and is being commercially developed by Ad Astra.
Astronomers find most distant water in the Universe -- Astronomers have found the most distant water yet seen in the Universe, in a galaxy more than 11 billion light-years from Earth. Previously, the most distant water had been seen in a galaxy less than 7 billion light-years from Earth.
Looking for extraterrestrial life in all the right places -- Scientists are expanding the search for extraterrestrial life -- and they've set their sights on some very unearthly planets. Cold "Super-Earths" that are giant, "snowball" planets astronomers have spied on the outskirts of faraway solar systems could potentially support some kind of life, they have found.
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Planets living on the edge
Some stars have it tough when it comes to raising planets. A new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows one unlucky lot of stars, born into a dangerous neighborhood. The stars themselves are safe, but the material surrounding them -- the dusty bits of what might have been future planets -- can be seen blowing off into space.
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Dark energy found stifling growth in universe -- For the first time, astronomers have clearly seen the effects of "dark energy" on the most massive collapsed objects in the universe using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. By tracking how dark energy has stifled the growth of galaxy clusters and combining this with previous studies, scientists have obtained the best clues yet about what dark energy is and what the destiny of the universe could be.
Rock varnish: A promising habitat for Martian bacteria -- As scientists search for life on Mars, they should take a close look at rock varnish. A new study suggests that rock varnish could provide a niche habitat for microbial life on Mars and in other extraterrestrial environments devoid of liquid water.
New oceanography mission data now available -- Oceanography data that will help scientists around the world better understand climate change are now available. The data come from the Ocean Surface Topography Mission, also known as OSTM/Jason-2, a spacecraft developed jointly by NASA and the French space agency.
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Dynamic moon Enceladus shows more signs of activity
The closer scientists look at Saturn's small moon Enceladus, the more they find evidence of an active world. The most recent flybys of Enceladus made by NASA's Cassini spacecraft have provided new signs of ongoing changes on and around the moon. The latest high-resolution images of Enceladus show signs that the south polar surface changes over time.
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Titan's volcanoes give NASA spacecraft chilly reception -- Data collected during several recent flybys of Titan by NASA's Cassini spacecraft have put another arrow in the quiver of scientists who think the Saturnian moon contains active cryovolcanoes spewing a super-chilled liquid into its atmosphere.
Phoenix site on Mars may be in dry climate cycle phase -- The Martian arctic soil that NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander dug into this year is very cold and very dry. However, when long-term climate cycles make the site warmer, the soil may get moist enough to modify the chemistry, producing effects that persist through the colder times.
Stennis Space Center to test rocket engine for Taurus 2 -- NASA's Stennis Space Center will provide propulsion system acceptance testing for the Taurus 2 space launch vehicle, which Orbital Sciences is developing.
SBIRS HEO surveillance system achieves certification -- The first Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO-1) payload and ground system, built by a Lockheed Martin team, has been certified for operations by U.S. Strategic Command.
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Hubble finds carbon dioxide on an extrasolar planet
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has discovered carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting another star. This is an important step along the trail of finding the chemical biotracers of extraterrestrial life as we know it.
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China launches another Earth-observing satellite -- China launched a secretive Earth observation satellite early Monday for land surveys and disaster monitoring, according to state media reports.
Ball completes environmental testing for Kepler mission -- Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. has successfully completed a series of rigorous environmental and operational tests for NASA's Kepler mission to verify seamless operation of the system level hardware and software.
Oscillation rules as the Pacific Ocean cools -- The latest image of sea-surface height measurements from the U.S./French Jason-1 oceanography satellite shows the Pacific Ocean remains locked in a strong, cool phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a large, long-lived pattern of climate variability in the Pacific associated with a general cooling of Pacific waters.
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Study tracks stars orbiting Milky Way black hole
In a 16-year long study, a team of German astronomers has produced the most detailed view ever of the surroundings of the monster lurking at our Galaxy's heart - a supermassive black hole. The research has unravelled the hidden secrets of this tumultuous region by mapping the orbits of almost 30 stars, a five-fold increase over previous studies. One of the stars has now completed a full orbit around the black hole.
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Astronomers dissect a supermassive black hole -- Combining a double natural "magnifying glass" with the power of ESO's Very Large Telescope, astronomers have scrutinised the inner parts of the disc around a supermassive black hole 10 billion light-years away. They were able to study the disc with a level of detail a thousand times better than that of the best telescopes in the world, providing the first observational confirmation of the prevalent theoretical models of such discs.
Students discover planet -- Three undergraduate students from Leiden University have discovered the first extrasolar planet orbiting a fast-rotating hot star.
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Endeavour's ferryflight delivers shuttle back home
Space shuttle Endeavour safely concluded its cross-country trek atop a Boeing 747 carrier jet Friday, flying from an overnight stopping point at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana and returning home to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
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NASA's Swift looks to comets for a cool view
NASA's Swift Gamma-ray Explorer satellite rocketed into space in 2004 on a mission to study some of the highest-energy events in the universe. The spacecraft has detected more than 380 gamma-ray bursts, fleeting flares that likely signal the birth of a black hole in the distant universe. In that time, Swift also has observed 80 exploding stars and studied six comets.
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Predicted planet seen -- In 2006, astronomer Alice Quillen of the University of Rochester predicted that a planet of a particular size and orbit must lie within the dust of a nearby star. That planet has now been photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope, making it only the second planet ever imaged after an accurate prediction. The only other planet seen after an accurate prediction was Neptune, discovered more than 160 years ago.
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Mars orbiter completes prime mission
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has completed its primary, two-year science phase. The spacecraft has found signs of a complex Martian history of climate change that produced a diversity of past watery environments.
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Camera measures size of a planet orbiting a distant star -- A team of astronomers led by John Johnson of the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy has used a new technique to measure the precise size of a planet around a distant star. They used a camera so sensitive that it could detect the passage of a moth in front of a lit window from a distance of 1,000 miles.
James Webb Telescope mirrors chill out -- The first of 18 mirror segments that will fly on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope arrived this week at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. to prepare it to meet the extreme temperatures it will encounter in space.
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Astronomers find the two dimmest stellar bulbs
It's a tie! The new record-holder for dimmest known star-like object in the universe goes to twin "failed" stars, or brown dwarfs, each of which shines feebly with only one millionth the light of our sun.
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Proton rocket puts payload into space for Canada
The first new commercial spacecraft for an up-and-coming Canadian satellite operator successfully ascended into orbit around the planet Wednesday atop a Russian rocket. The Proton booster blasted off at 8:43 a.m. EST from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan carrying the Ciel 2 spacecraft. It took about nine hours and five firings by the Breeze M upper stage to haul the 12,260-pound satellite into geosynchronous transfer orbit. The craft's anchor customer will be the DISH Network television broadcast service.
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Launch of Delta 4-Heavy rescheduled for January
Efforts to troubleshoot and resolve an issue with the top-secret national security satellite to be carried aloft by a Delta 4-Heavy rocket has slipped the launch into the New Year.
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Rivers of gas flow around stars in new space image
A new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows a turbulent star-forming region, where rivers of gas and stellar winds are eroding thickets of dusty material. The picture provides some of the best examples yet of the ripples of gas that can form around stars in choppy cosmic waters.
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Moon mission gets green light -- The UK-led MoonLITE mission that will see penetrator darts embedded into the lunar surface has been given the go ahead by the government to enter into an in-depth
"Phase-A" study.
Brown dwarfs do form like stars -- Astronomers have uncovered strong evidence that brown dwarfs - the dividing line between stars and planets - form like stars.
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U.S. and Europe join forces for future Mars missions
NASA and the European Space Agency have agreed on a strategic partnership for future robotic missions to explore Mars. The partnership will help the agencies share mounting costs and responsibilities for future missions.
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Orbiter finds Martian rock holding a rhythmic record
Climate cycles persisting for millions of years on ancient Mars left a record of rhythmic patterns in thick stacks of sedimentary rock layers, revealed in three-dimensional detail by a telescopic camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
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Rocket motor test helps NASA's shuttle and Ares 1 -- NASA's Space Shuttle Program on Thursday successfully conducted a test firing of a space shuttle reusable solid rocket motor in Utah. The more than seven-year-old, four-segment motor tested is the oldest ever fired.
NASA assigns crews for future space shuttle missions -- NASA has assigned the crews for space shuttle flights STS-130 and STS-131. The STS-130 mission will deliver a third connecting module to the International Space Station and a seven-windowed cupola to be used as a control room for robotics. The STS-131 mission will deliver research and science experiment equipment, a new sleeping area and supplies to the station in a logistics module carried in the shuttle's payload bay.
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NASA delays Mars Science Laboratory launch to 2011
Launch of NASA's showcase Mars Science Laboratory, a nuclear-powered rover the size of a small car, will be delayed from 2009 to 2011 because of ongoing development problems, agency officials said Thursday. The cost of the delay through end of mission will add some $400 million to the project's price tag, pushing the projected cost from $1.88 billion to around $2.2 billion.
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Supernova time travel to a 16th century explosion
When a person looks up into the nighttime sky, they see stars, planets, and galaxies across a sea of darkness. The movements of planets and seasonal variations to the constellations have been relatively the same for thousands of years. What if the sky changed overnight and a new star brighter than anything else appeared? Would it be noticed if it happened in the 16th century?
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A new class of comets -- Comet 96P/Machholz 1 shows extremely anomalous compositional characteristics helping pinpoint its origin to one of three intriguing scenarios.
Cosmic ray influx -- Research conducted at the Milagro observatory has uncovered two nearby regions in space that exhibit unusually high readings of cosmic rays.
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Jets on Enceladus: Are they wet or just wild?
Scientists continue to search for the cause of the geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus. The geysers are visible as a large plume of water vapor and ice particles escaping the moon. Inside the plume are jets of dust and gas. What causes and controls the jets is a mystery. The Cassini spacecraft continues to collect new data to look for clues.
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SpaceX adds two DragonLab missions to manifest -- SpaceX announces the addition of two DragonLab missions to its manifest, as a result of demand from a successful workshop held to introduce the new product. The first two flights are scheduled for 2010 and 2011 respectively from the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch site at Complex 40, Cape Canaveral, Florida.
NASA selects contractor for next GOES series spacecraft -- NASA, in coordination with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has selected the contractor for the next series of weather satellites. Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company of Denver was selected to build the satellites for NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites, or GOES-R, Program.
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NASA finishes listening for Phoenix lander on Mars
After nearly a month of daily checks to determine whether Martian NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander would be able to communicate again, the agency has stopped using its Mars orbiters to hail the lander and listen for its beep.
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Russians deploy new military spacecraft into orbit -- Russia launched a military reconnaissance satellite Tuesday morning into an elliptical high-altitude orbit from the country's northern space base, according to news reports.
Chinese launch another Earth-observing satellite -- China launched a new remote sensing satellite early Monday for a variety of civilian applications, according to state media reports. The Yaogan 4 satellite was launched aboard a Long March 2D rocket.
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Weather detour leads shuttle to California landing
The space shuttle Endeavour dropped out of a cloudless blue sky and settled to a tire-smoking touchdown at California's Edwards Air Force Base on Sunday afternoon to wrap up another 16-day space station assembly and maintenance mission. Poor weather at Florida's Kennedy Space Center caused NASA to divert the shuttle to the backup landing site.
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New simulation gives Jupiter double-sized core
New computer simulations, conducted at the scale of individual atoms, say Jupiter has a rocky core surrounded by ice that is more than twice as large as previously thought.
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Milky Way's mammoth stars resolved by Hubble
Two of our Galaxy's most massive stars have been scrutinised by the Hubble Space Telescope to reveal a third component of the system.
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When and where will shuttle Endeavour land?
Entry Flight Director Bryan Lunney hopes the Florida weather will cooperate and permit the Endeavour astronauts to land Sunday at the Kennedy Space Center. But if predicted high crosswinds and thunderstorms develop, and if Monday's forecast promises little improvement, he'll divert the crew to Edwards Air Force Base in California's Mojave Desert.
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Shuttle departs station to prepare for landing
Space shuttle Endeavour undocked from the international space station Friday morning, capping a 12-day visit that delivered the equipment needed to enlarge the outpost's crew size. The astronauts spent the afternoon performing a final round of heat shield inspections. The shuttle is scheduled for landing on Sunday, weather permitting.
INSPECTIONS COMPLETED
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Thanksgiving in space
Celebrating Thanksgiving in space, the crews of the international space station and the shuttle Endeavour enjoyed a half-day off and shared a turkey dinner in orbit before saying farewell and closing hatches between the two spacecraft to set the stage for undocking Friday.
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Leonardo returns to shuttle; Progress glitch fixed
An unmanned Russian Progress supply ship was launched Wednesday, bound for a docking with the international space station Sunday. An antenna that is part of the vehicle's automated docking system initially failed to deploy, but later efforts got the antenna out. Aboard the station, the astronauts closed the Leonardo cargo module and, using the station's robot arm, moved it back to the shuttle for return to Earth.
LEONARDO RETURNED TO SHUTTLE
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Booster cameras give dramatic views of launch
Footage recorded by video cameras on space shuttle Endeavour's twin solid rocket boosters has been released showing the ship's nighttime launch on November 14 from Kennedy Space Center. The movies are presented here with launch audio.
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Station boss happy with SARJ, water recycler repairs
Work to replace bearings and re-lubricate the space station's damaged right-side solar array rotary joint went better than expected, a senior manager said Tuesday, resulting in remarkably smooth operation that may permit the agency to forego building, launching and installing costly replacement hardware. And the station's newly installed water recycling system, including an initially cantankerous urine distillation assembly, appears to be operating normally and will allow Endeavour to bring back more samples for analysis than expected.
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Spacewalkers complete final excursion of mission
Astronauts Stephen Bowen and Shane Kimbrough accomplished a six-hour spacewalk Monday that finished work on the space station's damaged right-side solar array rotary joint and carried out preventive maintenance on its port-side counterpart. Meanwhile, the shuttle flight has been extended a day and the water recycling system was fired back up and appeared to run relatively smoothly after additional modification work.
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NEW EXTERNAL TV CAMERA MOUNTED TO STATION PLAY
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FINISHING THE STARBOARD SARJ CLEANING PLAY
VIDEO:
PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE ON PORT SARJ PLAY
VIDEO:
KIMBROUGH FLOATS OUT OF THE AIRLOCK PLAY
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MONDAY MORNING FLIGHT DIRECTOR INTERVIEW PLAY
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FLIGHT DAY 10 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
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Falcon fires its 9 engines to simulate first stage flight
Intense orange light and a booming roar cut through the Central Texas countryside for three minutes Saturday night, signaling the end of a year-long series of ground tests on the core of SpaceX's new Falcon 9 rocket.
FULL STORY
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NASA spacecraft detects buried glaciers on Mars
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed vast Martian glaciers of water ice under protective blankets of rocky debris at much lower latitudes than any ice previously identified on the Red Planet.
FULL STORY
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Site list narrows for NASA's next Mars rover landing
Four intriguing places on Mars have risen to the final round as NASA selects a landing site for its next Mars mission, the Mars Science Laboratory.
FULL STORY
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Station's recycling gear shuts down yet again
An improvised fix to overcome subtle vibration issues that triggered premature shutdowns of the space station's new urine processor assembly appeared to have paid off Sunday. Engineers said an initial test run continued past the point of earlier failures, raising hopes the critical system can be coaxed into normal operation. But less than an hour later, the processor shut itself down again after experiencing problems similar to those that interrupted test runs Friday and Saturday.
FULL STORY
SYSTEM RUNS BEYOND EARLIER POINT
WATER SYSTEM RESTARTED FOR CRITICAL TEST
REPAIR PROCEDURES PERFORMED
MORNING WAKEUP STORY
MISSION STATUS CENTER - live updates!
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. I (.pdf download)
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SUNDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING PLAY
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INTERVIEWS WITH CREW BY ABC, CBS AND NBC NEWS PLAY
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SUNDAY MORNING FLIGHT DIRECTOR INTERVIEW PLAY
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FLIGHT DAY 9 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
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Spacewalkers almost finish work on paddle wheel joint
Astronauts Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper and Stephen Bowen took a grueling seven-hour spacewalk Saturday hoping to finish cleaning and lubricating the international space station's damaged right side solar array rotary joint. They completed all but the final section before running out time, instead deferring that site to Monday's EVA. Engineers in Houston, meanwhile, are continuing tests to troubleshoot problems with the station's new urine recycling system.
WATER SYSTEM REPAIR TO BE ATTEMPTED
SPACEWALK ENDS
FINAL BEARING WORK DEFERRED
EVA NO. 3 GETS UNDERWAY
MORNING WAKEUP STORY
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. H (.pdf download)
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SATURDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING PLAY
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LAST OF OLD BEARINGS REMOVED FROM SARJ PLAY
VIDEO:
BOWEN INSTALLS ANOTHER BEARING ASSEMBLY PLAY
VIDEO:
SARJ CLEANING TECHNIQUES TO REMOVE CONTAMINATION PLAY
VIDEO:
PIPER USES GREASE GUNS ON THE SARJ PLAY
VIDEO:
NEW TRUNDLE BEARING ASSEMBLY INSTALLED PLAY
VIDEO:
SPACEWALKING DUO GETS TO WORK PLAY
VIDEO:
SPACEWALK NO. 3 BEGINS PLAY
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WALKTHROUGH OF SPACEWALK NO. 3 PLAN PLAY
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SATURDAY MORNING FLIGHT DIRECTOR INTERVIEW PLAY
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FLIGHT DAY 8 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
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Apparent motor problem in station's new water system
Engineers believe the problem with the space station's new urine processor assembly, a key component in the water recycling system needed to boost the space station's crew size from three to six, involves trouble with a motor or associated sensors in a centrifuge that helps separate pure water from urine in a vacuum distillation system.
FULL STORY
EARLIER STORY
MORNING WAKEUP STORY
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. G (.pdf download)
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FRIDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING PLAY
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JOINT CREW IN-FLIGHT NEWS CONFERENCE PLAY
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FLIGHT DAY 7 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
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Second EVA success; water recycling glitch studied
Despite a tool shortage, a spacesuit carbon dioxide buildup late in the day and communications problems, spacewalkers Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper and Shane Kimbrough accomplished their primary goals, officials said Thursday, moving two equipment carts, servicing the station's robot arm and continuing work to clean and lubricate a jammed solar array rotary joint. Inside the lab complex, meanwhile, other astronauts ran into start-up glitches with the new urine processor.
FULL STORY
SPACEWALK NO. 2 ENDS
LOST TOOLS DON'T HAMPER EVA WORK
MORNING WAKEUP STORY
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. F (.pdf download)
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THURSDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING PLAY
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MAINTENANCE PERFORMED ON STATION'S ARM PLAY
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SPACEWALKERS PULL SECOND RAIL CART FREE PLAY
VIDEO:
FIRST CART REMOVED FROM STATION RAILS PLAY
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THURSDAY MORNING FLIGHT DIRECTOR INTERVIEW PLAY
VIDEO:
WALKTHROUGH OF SPACEWALK NO. 2 PLAN PLAY
VIDEO:
SHOW-AND-TELL OF SOLAR ALPHA ROTARY JOINT WORK PLAY
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FLIGHT DIRECTOR'S SUMMARY OF FLIGHT DAY 7 PLAY
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FLIGHT DAY 6 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
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Hubble solves mystery of lone starburst galaxy
Astronomers have solved the mystery as to why a small, nearby, isolated galaxy is pumping out new stars faster than any galaxy in our local neighborhood. It turns out it is actually further away than astronomers first thought.
FULL STORY
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Scientists find planet dangerously close to star
A new planet found orbiting a red giant star at a distance of just 0.6 AU may shed new light on how aging stars influence nearby planets before they are consumed.
FULL STORY
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10th birthday for the ISS
The first piece of the international space station -- Russia's Zarya control module -- was launched into Earth orbit 10 years ago Thursday, riding atop a Proton rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. We present a video flashback of that historic launch that began the in-orbit assembly of the station complex.
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PROTON ROCKET ROLLS OUT TO THE PAD PLAY
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LAUNCH OF THE ZARYA CONTROL MODULE PLAY
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POST-LAUNCH COMMENTS BY NASA AND RSA PLAY
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SHUTTLE AND STATION COMMANDERS MARK ANNIVERSARY PLAY
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Spacewalker expresses remorse for lost tool bag
Astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper told reporters Wednesday the loss of a $100,000 tool bag during an otherwise successful spacewalk Tuesday was "disheartening" and that it was difficult to face her crewmates when she returned to the shuttle-space station complex. Fellow spacewalker Stephen Bowen, who said he was responsible for making a final tether check of the bag before the EVA began, said he was equally to blame for the mishap.
FULL STORY
MORNING WAKEUP STORY
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. E (.pdf download)
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VIDEO:
LAUNCH CAMERA REPLAYS
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WEDNESDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING PLAY
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AP, MINNEAPOLIS AND BOSTON INTERVIEWS WITH CREW PLAY
VIDEO:
WEDNESDAY MORNING FLIGHT DIRECTOR INTERVIEW PLAY
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FLIGHT DAY 5 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
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RIDE ALONG WITH ASTRONAUTS "RACK-CAM" PLAY
VIDEO:
COMBUSTION SCIENCE HARDWARE MOVED INTO STATION PLAY
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AIRLOCK CAMCORDER FOOTAGE AFTER SPACEWALK PLAY
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Scientists dive deeper into Mars' watery past
An international team of scientists working with data gleaned from Mars Odyssey's Gamma Ray Spectrometer report new evidence for the controversial idea that oceans once covered as much as one-third of ancient Mars.
FULL STORY
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XMM and Integral unveil magnetar environment
X-ray and gamma ray data from ESA's XMM-Newton and Integral orbiting observatories have been used to make the first tests of the physical processes that define magnetars, an unusual class of neutron star with immense magnetic fields.
FULL STORY
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Astronauts complete first spacewalk of shuttle flight
Astronauts Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper and Stephen Bowen wrapped up a six-hour 52-minute spacewalk Tuesday, installing a spare coolant system component on the international space station, moving a depleted nitrogen tank to the shuttle Endeavour for return to Earth and cleaning a damaged solar array rotary joint.
HEAT SHIELD OFFICIALLY CLEARED
POST-EVA STORY
SPACEWALK NO. 1 ENDS
BAG OF TOOLS FLOATS AWAY
HARDWARE SWAPPED BETWEEN ISS AND SHUTTLE
MORNING WAKEUP STORY
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. D (.pdf download)
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VIDEO:
TUESDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING PLAY
VIDEO:
EVA NO. 1 CONCLUDES PLAY
VIDEO:
SOLAR ALPHA ROTARY JOINT REPAIRS BEGIN PLAY
VIDEO:
TOOL BAG ACCIDENTALLY FLOATS AWAY PLAY
VIDEO:
GREASE GUN SPILL MAKES MESS IN TOOL CARRIER PLAY
VIDEO:
SPARE FLEX HOSE COUPLER DELIVERED TO STATION PLAY
VIDEO:
EMPTY NITROGEN TANK MOVED FROM STATION TO SHUTTLE PLAY
VIDEO:
TUESDAY MORNING FLIGHT DIRECTOR INTERVIEW PLAY
VIDEO:
SHOW-AND-TELL OF SOLAR ALPHA ROTARY JOINT WORK PLAY
VIDEO:
WALKTHROUGH OF SPACEWALK NO. 1 PLAN PLAY
VIDEO:
NARRATED ANIMATION OF SPACEWALK SWAPOUT PLAY
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FLIGHT DIRECTOR'S SUMMARY OF FLIGHT DAY 5 PLAY
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Cargo-delivery module attached to the station
Astronauts Don Pettit and Shane Kimbrough, operating the space station's robot arm, carefully pulled a 27,000-pound cargo module out of the shuttle Endeavour's cargo bay Monday and attached it to the Harmony module to accomplish one of the major objectives of their mission. Meanwhile, analysis of Endeavour heat shield checks revealed no major problems that would require a so-called focused inspection later this week.
NO 'FOCUSED' INSPECTIONS NEEDED
LEONARDO ATTACHED TO STATION
MORNING WAKEUP STORY
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. C (.pdf download)
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CREW OPENS HATCH AND ENTERS LEONARDO PLAY
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MONDAY'S MISSION MANAGEMENT TEAM UPDATE PLAY
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MONDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING PLAY
VIDEO:
LEONARDO MODULE SUCCESSFULLY MOUNTED TO STATION PLAY
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MONDAY MORNING FLIGHT DIRECTOR INTERVIEW PLAY
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PREVIEW ANIMATION OF LEONARDO MODULE ATTACHMENT PLAY
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SUMMARY OF CARGO BEING DELIVERED TO SPACE STATION PLAY
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Shuttle Endeavour sails up
to the space station
The space shuttle Endeavour, piloted by commander Chris Ferguson from the aft flight deck, glided to a picture-perfect docking with the international space station Sunday as the two spacecraft sailed through orbital darkness 212 miles above northeastern India at five miles per second.
DOCKING STORY
MORNING WAKEUP STORY
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. B (.pdf download)
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FLIGHT DAY 3 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
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SPACE SHUTTLE ENDEAVOUR DOCKS TO SPACE STATION PLAY
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ENDEAVOUR PERFORMS THE 360-DEGREE BACKFLIP PLAY
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VIEWS OF THE SHUTTLE APPROACHING FROM BELOW PLAY
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FLIGHT DIRECTOR'S SUMMARY OF FLIGHT DAY 3 PLAY
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PREVIEW ANIMATION OF RENDEZVOUS AND DOCKING PLAY
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FLIGHT DAY 2 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
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Crew spends first day in space inspecting Endeavour
The shuttle Endeavour is in good shape after its climb to space Friday and engineers are only working a handful of relatively minor problems, most noticeably glitches with the shuttle's KU-band antenna. Based on an evening video inspection, a presumably lost strip of flexible insulation from the shuttle's left aft fuselage apparently is still in place.
FULL STORY
MORNING WAKEUP STORY
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SATURDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING PLAY
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SATURDAY'S MISSION MANAGEMENT TEAM UPDATE PLAY
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PREVIEW ANIMATION OF HEAT SHIELD INSPECTIONS PLAY
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NARRATED TOUR OF ENDEAVOUR'S PAYLOAD BAY PLAY
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Lunar impactor dispatched from Indian spacecraft
Chandrayaan 1, India's first deep space probe, released a 75-pound impactor Friday that completed a suicidal nosedive into the moon's south pole about 25 minutes later.
FULL STORY
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Classified Russian spacecraft launched into Earth orbit -- Russia launched a top secret military satellite Friday in an unannounced flight from the country's northern space base, according to news reports.
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Endeavour soars into the night and reaches orbit
The space shuttle Endeavour, carrying urine recycling gear, a new toilet, a galley and private crew quarters needed for a space station "home improvement" makeover, flashed to life and thundered into space Friday, lighting up the night sky for hundreds of miles around as it rocketed away.
LAUNCH STORY
IMAGES: LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY
IMAGES: MORE LAUNCH PHOTOS
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. A (.pdf download)
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VIDEO:
FLIGHT DAY 1 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
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SPACE SHUTTLE ENDEAVOUR BLASTS OFF! PLAY
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THE FULL STS-126 LAUNCH EXPERIENCE PLAY
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INSIDE MISSION CONTROL DURING LAUNCH PLAY
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POST-LAUNCH NEWS BRIEFING PLAY
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FINAL PRE-LAUNCH POLLS GIVE "GO" FOR LIFTOFF PLAY
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SHUTTLE'S CREW MODULE HATCH CLOSED FOR FLIGHT PLAY
VIDEO:
MISSION SPECIALIST DON PETTIT BOARDS PLAY
VIDEO:
MISSION SPECIALIST SHANE KIMBROUGH BOARDS PLAY
VIDEO:
PILOT ERIC BOE BOARDS ENDEAVOUR PLAY
VIDEO:
COMMANDER CHRIS FERGUSON BOARDS ENDEAVOUR PLAY
VIDEO:
ASTROVAN TAKES CREW TO LAUNCH PAD 39A PLAY
VIDEO:
CREW DEPARTS QUARTERS FOR LAUNCH PAD PLAY
VIDEO:
ASTRONAUTS DON SPACESUITS FOR LAUNCH PLAY
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NARRATED RECAP OF ENDEAVOUR'S PRE-FLIGHT CAMPAIGN PLAY
VIDEO:
NARRATED RECAP OF PAYLOADS' PRE-FLIGHT CAMPAIGN PLAY
VIDEO:
PAD 39A SERVICE GANTRY RETRACTED FOR LAUNCH PLAY
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Hubble images exoplanet
Using the Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers has taken an image of a planet around the star Fomalhaut. It is the first such image of an exoplanet taken in visible wavelengths.
FULL STORY
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Planet family photographed around normal star
Astronomers using the Gemini North telescope and W.M. Keck Observatory on Hawaii's Mauna Kea have obtained the first images of a multi-planet system around a normal star.
FULL STORY
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Mission preview: Shuttle on 'home improvement' flight
The shuttle Endeavour is poised for blastoff Friday on a space station "home improvement" mission with a "yuck factor" twist: Delivery and installation of a new toilet and complex water processing gear designed to convert urine into ultra-pure water for drinking, food preparation, personal hygiene and oxygen generation.
MISSION PREVIEW STORY
NASA TV SCHEDULE (.pdf download)
LAUNCH WINDOWS CHART
COUNTDOWN TIMELINE
ASCENT TIMELINE
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WEDNESDAY'S PRE-LAUNCH NEWS CONFERENCE PLAY
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ENDEAVOUR ASTRONAUTS ARRIVE FOR LAUNCH PLAY
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STATION ASTRONAUTS PREPARE FOR SHUTTLE ARRIVAL PLAY
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ENDEAVOUR'S PAYLOADS READIED FOR TREK TO SPACE PLAY
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UPDATE ON SHUTTLE AND STATION PROGRAMS PLAY
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STS-126 MISSION OVERVIEW PLAY
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PREVIEW BRIEFING ON MISSION'S SPACEWALKS PLAY
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THE ASTRONAUTS' PRE-FLIGHT NEWS BRIEFING PLAY
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INTERVIEW WITH COMMANDER CHRIS FERGUSON PLAY
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INTERVIEW WITH PILOT ERIC BOE PLAY
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INTERVIEW WITH MS1 HEIDEMARIE PIPER PLAY
VIDEO:
INTERVIEW WITH MS2 STEPHEN BOWEN PLAY
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INTERVIEW WITH MS3 DON PETITT PLAY
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INTERVIEW WITH MS4 SHANE KIMBROUGH PLAY
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INTERVIEW WITH MS5 SANDY MAGNUS PLAY
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Griffin not optimistic about staying on as head of NASA
NASA Administrator Mike Griffin, answering questions from Kennedy Space Center workers during an "all hands" meeting Thursday, said he does not expect the Obama administration to keep him on as head of the nation's civilian space agency.
FULL STORY
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Controllers cheer as Spirit rover talks from Mars
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit communicated via the Mars Odyssey orbiter Thursday right at the time when ground controllers had told it to, prompting shouts of "She's talking!" among the rover team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
FULL STORY
WEDNESDAY'S STORY
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Richard Garriott interview
Richard Garriott, a significant figure in the video game industry, recently established himself as a self-funded space tourist, spending ten days onboard the International Space Station. We spoke to Garriott about the highs and lows of his space station experiences and his thoughts on the future of space tourism.
FULL STORY
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All systems looking good for Endeavour's launch
The shuttle Endeavour's countdown is continuing with no technical issues of any significance for launch on a critical space station assembly and maintenance mission. Liftoff is targeted for 7:55 p.m. EST Friday.
FULL STORY
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IBEX reaches orbit, begins instrument commissioning
Just over three weeks since its Oct. 19 launch, NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft -- the first mission designed to image the interaction at the edge of the solar system -- concluded its orbit-raising phase and is beginning instrument commissioning in preparation to start science observations.
FULL STORY
OUR LAUNCH COVERAGE
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Dusty shock waves generate planet ingredients
Using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers have shown that shock waves around dusty young stars could be generating the raw materials needed for planet formation.
FULL STORY
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Glowing stellar nurseries
By using sub-millimetre wavelength astronomy, astronomers have revealed the cold dense clouds of material that are the birth places of new stars.
FULL STORY
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It is launch week at the Kennedy Space Center
The seven astronauts who will rocket into space aboard the shuttle Endeavour arrived at the Florida spaceport Tuesday afternoon, just hours before the countdown clocks began ticking toward Friday's planned 7:55 p.m. EST launch.
MISSION STATUS CENTER
MORNING STORY
IMAGES: CREW ARRIVAL PHOTO GALLERY
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ENDEAVOUR ASTRONAUTS ARRIVE FOR LAUNCH PLAY
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Dust storm cuts energy supply of Spirit rover
A dust storm on Mars has cut into the amount of sunlight reaching the solar array on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit, leaving the rover in a vulnerable state.
FULL STORY
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Giant simulation could solve mystery of 'dark matter'
The search for a mysterious substance which makes up most of the Universe could soon be at an end, according to new research. Dark matter is believed to account for 85 percent of the Universe's mass but has remained invisible to telescopes since scientists inferred its existence from its gravitational effects more than 75 years ago.
FULL STORY
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Phoenix mission ends as lander enters deep freeze
After five months investigating soil and ice of the Martian northern arctic plains, NASA's Phoenix lander has depleted its batteries and fallen silent. The shorter periods of sunlight during the onset of winter to recharge the solar-powered spacecraft, plus dustier skies and colder temperatures meant the lander could no longer collect enough energy to survive. The mission had exceeded its 90-day life span.
FULL STORY
NASA STATEMENT
VIDEO: PHOENIX MISSION COVERAGE
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Fingers and loops revealed in the Crab Nebula
The Chandra X-ray Observatory has captured the first clear view of the faint boundary of the Crab Nebula's X-ray emitting pulsar wind nebula.
FULL STORY
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First Indian 'moon craft'
goes into lunar orbit
Chandrayaan 1, India's first deep space mission, successfully entered lunar orbit early Saturday after a circuitous two-and-a-half week journey from a seaside launch pad to the moon.
FULL STORY
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NASA satellites gauge Alaskan glacier ice loss
A NASA-led research team has used satellite data to make the most precise measurements to date of changes in the mass of mountain glaciers in the Gulf of Alaska, a region expected to be a significant contributor to global sea level rise over the next 50-100 years.
FULL STORY
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OTHER HEADLINES Additional stories today
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Oldest commercial communications satellite retires -- After 32 years of serving ships at sea and scientists at the South Pole, an aging communications satellite owned by Intelsat Ltd. has been retired. The Marisat-F2 satellite was manufactured by Hughes Aircraft Inc. and launched in 1976.
Technical issues, more tests delay TacSat-3's liftoff -- The timeless saying every gray cloud has a silver lining aptly fits the Tactical Satellite-3 program during the past 60 days.
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Bullet Cluster: Searching for primordial antimatter
Scientists are on the hunt for evidence of antimatter -- matter's arch nemesis -- left over from the very early Universe. New results using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Compton Gamma Ray Observatory suggest the search may have just become even more difficult.
FULL STORY
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Proton rocket deploys ASTRA satellite for Europe
A new European communications satellite was launched into space Wednesday, bound for a premier orbital location that broadcasts over 1,000 channels to 93 million homes in 35 countries.
FULL STORY
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OTHER HEADLINES Additional stories today
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Two more satellites placed into orbit by China -- China launched two new satellites aboard a Long March 2D rocket early Wednesday, marking the country's third launch in less than three weeks.
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Strange Martian landforms are climate clues, rover traps
One of the most fun and fascinating aspects of space exploration is discovering geological processes and terrain different from those found on our home planet, says Matt Balme, who is leading a team that's decoding Martian mystery landscapes.
FULL STORY
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Phoenix lander weak but still communicating
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has communicated with controllers daily since Oct. 30 through relays to Mars orbiters. Information received over the weekend indicates Phoenix is running out of power each afternoon or evening but reawakening after its solar arrays catch morning sunlight.
FULL STORY
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NASA's Spitzer gets sneak peak inside comet Holmes
When comet Holmes unexpectedly erupted in 2007, professional and amateur astronomers around the world turned their telescopes toward the spectacular event. Their quest was to find out why the comet had suddenly exploded.
FULL STORY
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Developing the Falcon 9:
A new rocket in the making
A makeshift rocket suspended more than 10 stories above the Texas prairie is progressing through a step-by-step series of ground tests to prove that SpaceX's new Falcon 9 rocket is ready for launch next year.
FULL STORY
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Discarded station device
re-enters the atmosphere
A refrigerator-size ammonia tank thrown overboard from the international space station more than a year ago finally fell back to Earth late Sunday, a NASA official said.
FULL STORY
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Splashy portrait helps explain how stars form
Different wavelengths of light swirl together like watercolors in a new, ethereal portrait of a bright, star-forming region. The picture combines infrared, visible and X-ray light from the Spitzer Space Telescope, the New Technology Telescope and XMM-Newton.
FULL STORY
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OTHER HEADLINES Additional stories today
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MIT researchers find clues to planets' birth -- Meteorites that are among the oldest rocks ever found have provided new clues about the conditions that existed at the beginning of the solar system, solving a longstanding mystery and overturning some accepted ideas about the way planets form.
Neil Armstrong gives papers to Purdue Libraries -- The personal story of the first person to land a craft on the moon and to step on its surface will live forever - in the Purdue University Libraries. Astronaut Neil Armstrong will give his alma mater personal papers that will serve as historic archives and scholarly resources.
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Endeavour to go Nov. 14; Hubble slips deeper into '09
NASA officials Thursday cleared shuttle Endeavour for launch to the space station on Nov. 14 and also scrapped the possibility of Atlantis flying the final Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission next February, saying the additional time needed to ready replacement electronics for the observatory will push back the launch window until at least May.
FULL STORY
ATLANTIS MISSION STATUS CENTER
ENDEAVOUR MISSION STATUS CENTER
STORE: ENDEAVOUR CREW PATCH
STORE: ATLANTIS CREW PATCH
STORE: STS-125 MISSION PIN
STORE: HUBBLE PROGRAM PATCH
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Cassini's imaging trick to earn halloween treats
Following the success of the "skeet shoot" imaging technique employed for the Enceladus fly-by in August, Cassini will perform the same trick to obtain more high resolution images of the icy satellite this halloween.
FULL STORY
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Ground controllers listen for response from Mars
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, with its solar-electric power shrinking due to shorter daylight hours and a dust storm, did not respond to an orbiter's attempt to communicate with it Wednesday night and Thursday morning. A later session did receive a signal.
FULL STORY
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MESSENGER unveils more hidden territory on Mercury
Gliding over the battered surface of Mercury for the second time this year, NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft has revealed even more previously unseen real estate on the innermost planet, sending home hundreds of photos and measurements of its surface, atmosphere, and magnetic field.
FULL STORY
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Martian weather hampers Phoenix spacecraft
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander entered safe mode late Tuesday in response to a low-power fault brought on by deteriorating weather conditions. While engineers anticipated that a fault could occur due to the diminishing power supply, the lander also unexpectedly switched to the "B" side of its redundant electronics and shut down one of its two batteries.
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Astronauts complete launch countdown rehearsal
Endeavour's seven-person crew climbed aboard the space shuttle at launch pad 39A Wednesday morning for a simulated countdown with ground controllers.
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Rare event in life of distant quasar revealed
A bit of serendipity has given astronomers a surprise view of a never-before-observed event in the birth of a galaxy, discovering the onset of a huge flow of gas from a quasar.
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Fireball captured by
Canadian cameras
For the second time this year The University of Western Ontario's Meteor Group has captured rare footage of a meteor streaking across the sky and possibly falling to the ground.
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NASA orbiter reveals details of a wetter Mars
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has observed a new category of minerals spread across large regions of Mars. This discovery suggests that liquid water remained on the planet's surface a billion years later than scientists believed, and it played an important role in shaping the planet's surface and possibly hosting life.
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NASA's Phoenix mission faces survival challenges -- In a race against time and the elements, engineers with NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander mission hope to extend the lander's survival by gradually shutting down some of its instruments and heaters, starting Tuesday.
Arctic sea ice thinning at record rate -- The thickness of sea ice in large parts of the Arctic declined by as much as 19 percent last winter compared to the previous five winters, according to data from ESA's Envisat satellite.
Dust storm predictions to aid health community -- NASA satellite data can improve forecasts of dust storms in the American Southwest in ways that can benefit public health managers. Scientists announced the finding as a five-year NASA-funded project nears its conclusion.
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Solar system's young twin has two asteroid belts
Astronomers have discovered that the nearby star Epsilon Eridani has two rocky asteroid belts and an outer icy ring, making it a triple-ring system. The inner asteroid belt is a virtual twin of the belt in our solar system, while the outer asteroid belt holds 20 times more material. Moreover, the presence of these three rings of material implies that unseen planets confine and shape them.
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COROT directly sees 'Sun-quakes' in other stars
The Earth orbiting COROT satellite has applied the technique of seismology to the study of stellar interiors, probing the interiors of three stars beyond our own Sun for the first time.
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Endeavour crew jets into Cape for practice count
A countdown dress rehearsal and emergency training drills are underway at Kennedy Space Center this week to prepare for shuttle Endeavour's scheduled November 14 launch on an equipment-delivery mission to the space station.
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Italian radar-imaging craft launched by Delta rocket
The third spacecraft for Italy's home-grown Earth observing system, a constellation of radar satellites built for civil and military reconnaissance, received a successful boost into orbit Friday evening by an American Delta 2 rocket.
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Chinese satellites launched -- China deployed two research satellites early Saturday in a super-secret launch from a space center in the northeastern part of the country.
ESA gravity mission slips to 2009 -- The launch of Europe's Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) has slipped to February 2009 due to ongoing technical faults with its launcher.
SBIRS satellite completes acoustic testing -- The U.S. Air Force's first geosynchronous Space Based Infrared Systems satellite successfully completed acoustic testing at the development site in Sunnyvale, Calif., bringing unprecedented early missile warning capability one step closer to the warfighter.
SMC to manage ORS Sat-1 mission efforts -- The DoD's Operationally Responsive Space office selected the Space and Missile Systems Center's Space Development and Test Wing, Kirtland AFB, N.M., to manage the development and fielding of the first ORS mission known as ORS Sat-1.
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Soyuz returns to Earth
Two Russian cosmonauts and an American tourist left the international space station and returned to Earth Thursday night, landing on the steppes of central Asia inside their parachute-equipped descent capsule. Mission Control said the spacecraft did not experience the module separation problem that that impacted the previous two Soyuz landings.
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Hubble Space Telescope team plots recovery plan
Engineers believe they understand what caused isolated problems during restart of the Hubble Space Telescope's science instruments last week in the wake of an earlier electrical glitch. They have successfully restarted Hubble's B-side payload computer, officials said Thursday, and hope to bring the first of the telescope's major science instruments back on line this weekend.
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Shuttle Endeavour travels from one pad to the other
Space shuttle Endeavour switched launch pads at the Kennedy Space Center today, performing a "rollaround" in preparation for its November 14 ascent to the space station.
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Phoenix lander completes Mars soil delivery
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has finished scooping soil samples to deliver to its onboard laboratories, and is now preparing to analyse samples already obtained before the Sun completely sets on the mission.
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Is Martian moon Phobos a rubble pile?
New Mars Express observations of Martian moon Phobos suggest it could be a rubble pile rather than a single solid object, but questions remain as to where the material actually came from in the first place.
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India's first lunar voyage successfully launched
India made the next giant leap in its space program early Wednesday with the launch of the country's first deep space mission, a probe to circle the moon with science gear from India, Europe and the United States.
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Hubble engineers not yet sure about cause of glitches
After a weekend of troubleshooting, engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center have not yet pinned down the cause of two glitches last week that prevented restart of the Hubble Space Telescope's science instruments, officials said Tuesday.
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New satellite to study solar system's distant frontier
A small eight-sided satellite has marked the start of a two-year mission of long-distance exploration to study the little-known boundary between the solar system and the galaxy beyond.
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Molten planets could point to exo-Earths
Earth-like planets may be easier to spot than planet-hunters originally thought, since their hot, molten surfaces may exist for tens of millions of years, presenting them as glowing beacons as they orbit their parent stars.
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Atlantis leaves launch pad to wait out Hubble delay
With its flight to the Hubble Space Telescope postponed until next year, space shuttle Atlantis rolled off its launch pad Monday and is now safely inside the Vehicle Assembly Building.
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Supermassive black holes common in early Universe
Observations of a spectacular collision of galaxies in the distant Universe have revealed that colossal black holes were present when galaxies were just beginning to form.
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New Hubble trouble stalls telescope reactivation
Work to switch the Hubble Space Telescope to a backup science data management system after a component failed last month has been interrupted by a pair of on-board glitches during the restart process, officials said Friday.
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Fermi telescope discovers first gamma-ray-only pulsar
About three times a second, a 10,000-year-old stellar corpse sweeps a beam of gamma-rays toward Earth. Discovered by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, the pulsar is the first one known that only "blinks" in gamma rays.
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Newborn Earth-like planets could be easier to find
Hot, young planets may be easier to spot because they stay that way longer than astronomers have thought, according to new work by MIT planetary scientist Linda Elkins-Tanton.
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ATK and USA announce agreement on Ares I subcontract work -- Alliant Techsystems announced Thursday that it reached an agreement with United Space Alliance to perform subcontractor support to ATK for NASA's Ares I launch vehicle.
Main mirror reinstalled in SOFIA observatory -- Engineers and technicians from NASA, the German Space Agency and the Deutsches SOFIA Institut recently reinstalled the German-built primary mirror assembly into NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA).
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Mars orbiter reveals rare polar impact craters
An odd, solitary hill rising part-way down an eroding slope in Mars' north polar layered terrain may be the remnant of a buried impact crater, suggests a University of Arizona planetary scientist who studied the feature in a new, detailed image from the HiRISE camera onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
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Lunar prospecting robot to be tested in Hawaii
The cool, rocky slopes of Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano that is Hawaii's highest mountain, will serve as a stand-in for the moon as researchers from Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, NASA and other organizations test a robot designed for lunar prospecting.
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1,000 days and counting on voyage of New Horizons
Wednesday marked the 1,000th day of flight for the Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft, which launched aboard an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral on January 19, 2006. The probe will make the first close encounter with Pluto in 2015, then venture into the Kuiper Belt. Relive the launch with our archived coverage:
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Hubble set for critical switch to backup electronics
After two weeks of engineering reviews and discussions, NASA managers have decided to press ahead with plans to put the Hubble Space Telescope into electronic hibernation Wednesday to carry out what amounts to long-distance neurosurgery.
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New resident crew arrives aboard the space station
Soyuz commander Yury Lonchakov and his two crewmates, NASA astronaut Mike Fincke and space tourist Richard Garriott, docked with the international space station Tuesday to close out a two-day orbital chase.
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Tides have major impact on planet habitability
Astronomers searching for rocky planets that could support life in other solar systems should look outside, as well as within, the so-called "habitable zone," University of Arizona planetary scientists say.
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Simulations reveal exotic weather on distant worlds
Computer simulations of the atmospheric circulation on Jupiter-like planets around other stars can explain temperature observations of these planets and shed light on the exotic weather experienced by these far-away worlds.
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Cyclones at Saturn's poles create swirl of mystery
New images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft reveal a giant cyclone at Saturn's north pole, and show that a similarly monstrous cyclone churning at Saturn's south pole is powered by Earth-like storm patterns.
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Soyuz blasts off with new station crew and tourist
A Russian Soyuz spacecraft rocketed into orbit and set off after the international space station Sunday, carrying two fresh crew members and a U.S. computer game designer who paid some $30 million for a chance to follow in his astronaut father's footsteps.
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Amid issues, Mars Science Lab still targets '09 launch
NASA decided on Friday to keep the agency's next mission to Mars on track for launch next year, but officials could not say how much the move would cost or where the money would come from.
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MESSENGER reveals more of Mercury's secrets
The MESSENGER spacecraft successfully completed its second flyby of the innermost planet this week, unveiling another 30 percent of the planet's surface in over 1,200 high resolution photos.
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Pegasus rocket headed to Pacific isle for NASA launch
An Orbital Sciences Pegasus rocket with a NASA satellite nestled in its nose cone will fly away from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base on Saturday, but the winged booster won't be soaring into space.
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Mars Odyssey shifting orbit for extended mission
The longest-serving of six spacecraft now studying Mars is up to new tricks for a third two-year extension of its mission to examine the most Earthlike of known foreign planets.
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Year's final Ariane 5 launch to carry two Eutelsat craft
The unavailability of a U.S.-built communications satellite will cause Arianespace to miss its goal of a record seven Ariane 5 launches this year, company officials said.
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OUR ARIANE ARCHIVE
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Phoenix digs into darkness
As the Sun falls further and further below the horizon in northern hemisphere Mars, Phoenix continues to dig soil and deliver samples to its onboard laboratory for analysis.
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Saturn moon flyby will look at solar system's history
NASA's Cassini spacecraft is scheduled to fly within 16 miles of Saturn's moon Enceladus on Thursday and measure molecules in its space environment that could give insight into the history of the solar system.
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Stars stop forming when big galaxies collide
Astronomers studying new images of a nearby galaxy cluster have found evidence that high-speed collisions between large elliptical galaxies may prevent new stars from forming, according to a paper to be published in a November.
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Outer solar system not as crowded as astronomers thought -- When a treasure hunt comes up empty-handed, the hunters are understandably disappointed. But when astronomers don't find what they are looking for, the defeat can provide as much information as a successful search.
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Air Force says next weather satellite not needed yet
With the U.S. military's polar-orbiting weather satellite constellation healthy and working well, the Air Force will forego the planned November launching of a replacement craft and instead look for another liftoff opportunity next summer or even later.
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Small asteroid burns up in Earth's atmosphere
According to predictions, the boulder-sized asteroid 2008TC3 exploded in the Earth's atmosphere at 0246 GMT above northern Sudan Tuesday morning.
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Discovery stirs exoplanet classification rethink
COROT has discovered a massive planet-sized object orbiting its parent star closely, unlike anything ever spotted before. It is so exotic, that scientists are unsure as to whether this oddity is actually a planet or a failed star.
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Keck finds cloudy weather on failed stars
A team of astronomers using one of the Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea has found evidence for cloudy weather on two failed stars.
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Explanation proposed for puzzling night-shining clouds -- An explanation for a strange property of noctilucent clouds -- thin, wispy clouds hovering at the edge of space at 85 km altitude -- has been proposed by an experimental plasma physicist at Caltech, possibly laying to rest a decades-long mystery.
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NASA's MESSENGER probe returns to Mercury
A NASA spacecraft conducts the second of three flybys of Mercury on Monday to photograph most of its remaining unseen surface and collect science data.
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Landscaping the cosmos
The Hubble Heritage Project celebrates its 10th anniversary this month with a beautiful landscape image of the "hills" and "valleys" of gas and dust in the giant gaseous cavity of star-forming region NGC 3324.
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NASA shoots for Nov. 14 launch of shuttle Endeavour
Shuttle program managers are now targeting Nov. 14 for launch of the Endeavour on a space station repair and resupply mission. No target dates have yet been set for shuttle Atlantis' launch on a now-delayed flight to service the Hubble Space Telescope, but it appears the earliest possible launch slot is mid February.
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Worlds in collision
Two terrestrial planets orbiting a mature sun-like star some 300 light-years from Earth recently suffered a violent collision. "It's as if Earth and Venus collided with each other," astronomers say.
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Magnetic field in distant galaxy produces a surprise
Using a powerful radio telescope to peer into the early universe, a team of California astronomers has obtained the first direct measurement of a nascent galaxy's magnetic field as it appeared 6.5 billion years ago.
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Sharpening up Jupiter
A record two-hour observation of Jupiter using a superior technique to remove atmospheric blur has produced the sharpest whole-planet picture ever taken from the ground. The 265 snapshots reveal changes in Jupiter's smog-like haze, probably in response to a planet-wide upheaval more than a year ago.
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After lengthy delay, rocket finally allowed to launch
A Thai remote sensing satellite blasted off atop a converted ballistic missile Wednesday and finally reached orbit after being grounded for nearly a year due to political wrangling between Russia and Kazakhstan.
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'Wild cousin' in family tree of exploding stars
Astronomers may have discovered the relative of a freakishly behaving exploding star once thought to be the only one of its kind. For more than two decades, astronomers have intensively studied supernova 1987A, an exploding star that had behaved like no other. Instead of growing dimmer with time, 1987A has grown brighter at X-ray and radio wavelengths.
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Infrared echoes give Spitzer supernova flashback
Hot spots near the shattered remains of an exploded star are echoing the blast's first moments, say scientists using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
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When it comes to galaxies, diversity is everywhere
There's an old saying in astronomy: "Galaxies are like people. They're only normal until you get to know them." That view is supported by a group of astronomers after using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to study a large number of galaxies in our cosmic backyard.
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Orbiter reveals rock fracture plumbing on Mars
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed hundreds of small fractures exposed on the Martian surface that billions of years ago directed flows of water through underground Martian sandstone.
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Kepler spacecraft baked and ready for more tests -- NASA's planet-hunting Kepler mission, scheduled to launch in 2009, has survived an extreme temperature test. The thermal vacuum test is part of a series of environmental tests the spacecraft will undergo before it blasts into space aboard a Delta 2 rocket from Cape Canaveral.
Cabana to succeed Parsons as Kennedy Space Center director -- NASA announced Tuesday that William Parsons, director of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is leaving the agency in mid-October to pursue opportunities in the private sector. Parsons will be succeeded by former astronaut Robert Cabana, currently director of the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.
Crew picked for Discovery's STS-129 mission -- NASA has assigned the crew for space shuttle Discovery's STS-129 mission. The flight will deliver two experiment racks to the International Space Station. Marine Col. Charlie Hobaugh will command the mission, which is targeted to launch in October 2009.
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Failure aboard Hubble puts shuttle flight on hold
A critical equipment failure aboard the Hubble Space Telescope on the eve of a long-awaited fifth and final shuttle servicing mission put astronomical observations on hold and forced NASA managers Monday to delay the mid-October flight of Atlantis, likely until next February or even later.
FULL STORY - updated @ 8:25 p.m.
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Europe's station resupply ship concludes mission
An historic chapter in Europe's space program came to a close Monday when Jules Verne, a human-rated supply ship for the international space station, completed its mission with a fiery suicidal plunge into Earth's atmosphere.
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More results from Mars lander suggest liquid past
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has detected snow falling from Martian clouds, and spacecraft soil tests experiments also have provided evidence of past interaction between minerals and liquid water, processes that occur on Earth.
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Sweet success at last for SpaceX and Falcon 1 rocket
The Falcon 1 booster redeemed itself Sunday with an electrifying launch that put an exclamation point on six years of hard work and disappointment for SpaceX, a startup company chartered to revolutionize space travel.
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Shenzhou spacecraft lands safely after three-day flight
Three astronauts strapped inside the Shenzhou 7 capsule plummeted through the atmosphere and parachuted to a pinpoint landing in northern China Sunday to complete a three-day mission that included the country's first spacewalk.
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China accomplishes its historic first spacewalk
A pair of Chinese astronauts suited up and floated through the hatch of the Shenzhou 7 spacecraft Saturday for a dramatic 14-minute excursion in space, completing China's historic first spacewalk.
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Station to get new ring for damaged solar rotary joint
Engineers believe they have finally pinned down the cause of metallic contamination and degradation in a critical solar array rotary joint mechanism aboard the international space station, Program Manager Michael Suffredini said Thursday. The problem apparently was caused by the premature loss or breakdown of a gold plating intended to lubricate the joint.
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Russians believe cause of Soyuz problems found
Russian troubleshooters believe electrical arcing between the space environment and the international space station most likely caused recent problems with explosive bolts used to separate Soyuz re-entry vehicles just before atmospheric entry.
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China launches three-man crew on spacewalk mission
Three Chinese astronauts blasted off on the country's third human space voyage Thursday, beginning a mission that will include the Chinese space program's first spacewalk.
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ORBIT MANEUVER COMPLETED
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First RS-68A hot-fire engine test a success
United Launch Alliance has announced the successful first hot-firing of the new Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne RS-68A engine that will be used to power a future upgraded version of the Delta 4 Heavy Lift launch vehicle.
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Russia launches three more navigation satellites
A Proton rocket hauled three new satellites into orbit Thursday to replenish Russia's space-based navigation system, marking the heavy-lift booster's second flight in less than a week.
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Hurricane Ike forces delay of next two shuttle launches
Shuttle program managers Wednesday ordered minor, expected delays for the next two shuttle missions - an October flight to service the Hubble Space Telescope and a November space station assembly mission - primarily because of training time lost in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike.
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House passes waiver to buy more Soyuz flights
The U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday, as part of a continuing resolution needed to fund government operations past the upcoming elections and into 2009, extended a waiver to the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act that would allow NASA to purchase seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft after the current waiver expires at the end of 2011.
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China poised for its next step in human spaceflight
China will send its third human space mission into orbit Thursday on a flight that is slated to include the emergent space program's first spacewalk this weekend, officials announced Wednesday.
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Sea Launch deploys new Galaxy for North America
A communications satellite that will broadcast a range of international television channels to North America was sent into space Wednesday to replace the aging spacecraft currently doing that job.
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Commander says crew needs to make up training
Atlantis commander Scott Altman said Tuesday his crew lost a week of training time because of Hurricane Ike, "so you come to the question of either slipping the launch or cutting out events."
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Ulysses reveals Sun is blowing weaker solar wind
Surprising data from NASA's Ulysses spacecraft show that the solar wind -- the continuous outflow of plasma and magnetic fields from the Sun's atmosphere into interplanetary space -- is only about three fourths as strong as it was a decade ago, during the last interval of low solar activity.
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Cosmic 'dark flow' detected across billions of light years
Using data from NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, scientists have identified an unexpected motion in distant galaxy clusters. The cause, they suggest, is the gravitational attraction of matter that lies beyond the observable universe.
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Opportunity rover to head toward giant crater
NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity is setting its sights on a crater more than 20 times larger than its home for the past two years. To reach the crater the rover team calls Endeavour, Opportunity would need to drive approximately 7 miles to the southeast, matching the total distance it has traveled since landing on Mars in early 2004.
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Three-dimensional look at Venus' raging winds
ESA's Venus Express spacecraft, the most powerful atmospheric investigator ever sent to Venus, has put together the first 3D picture of the fierce winds that roar across the planet's southern hemisphere.
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Launch slip likely for Atlantis' flight to Hubble
The Atlantis astronauts are reviewing emergency procedures at the Kennedy Space Center before participating in a dress-rehearsal countdown Wednesday. Launch on a high-profile mission to service and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope remains targeted for Oct. 10, but sources say the flight is expected to slip a few days because of training and hardware processing issues.
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For a few hours on Saturday morning, a true rarity occurred for NASA's space shuttle program as both Atlantis and Endeavour were fully visible on their Kennedy Space Center launch pads with the rotating service gantries open.
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Atlantis crew at the Cape for practice countdown
The astronauts to service the Hubble Space Telescope next month flew into Kennedy Space Center on Sunday afternoon for this week's countdown dress rehearsal and emergency training drills at launch pad 39A.
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Shenzhou 7 put on pad for China's next manned flight
The 19-story rocket that will dispatch three Chinese astronauts into the final frontier next week was moved from a massive assembly building to the launch pad Saturday.
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Shuttle Endeavour rolls to the launch pad 39B
Following through on its extraordinary plan to have a quick-response space shuttle poised to launch if the Atlantis crew needs rescuing during next month's Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission, NASA rolled sistership Endeavour to the other Kennedy Space Center pad Friday morning.
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Swift catches farthest-ever gamma-ray burst
NASA's Swift satellite has found the most distant gamma-ray burst ever detected. The blast arose from an exploding star 12.8 billion light-years away.
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Unexpected mixing of solar system shown in comet dust
Chemical clues from a comet's halo are challenging common views about the history and evolution of the solar system and showing it may be more mixed-up than previously thought.
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Water present on Mars billion years longer
New research suggests that water may have played a role in shaping parts of the Martian landscape for a billion years longer than previous studies have proposed.
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Final packing underway for Hubble payloads
Technicians have cleaned up contamination concerns on a carrier housing fresh batteries and a new camera bound for the Hubble Space Telescope. The payloads for the servicing mission will be transported to space shuttle Atlantis at launch pad 39A on Saturday night.
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Johnson Space Center to reopen Monday after Ike
NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston is scheduled to reopen Monday, Sept. 22, ending its closure related to Hurricane Ike. Johnson shut down Sept. 11 as Ike approached the Texas coast. The Mission Control Center and other key facilities are largely unscathed. However, some center buildings suffered roof, window and facade damage. Several light poles were downed, as were a number of trees. The damage assessment and cleanup continues.
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Russian freighter finally docks to station
After loitering in orbit for the past week because Hurricane Ike closed Houston's mission control, a Russian-made Progress resupply ship successfully docked to the international space station at 2:43 p.m. EDT Wednesday. The backup control center in Huntsville is being used while Houston recovers from the storm.
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New Mars mission picked to study planet's atmosphere
NASA has selected a Mars robotic mission that will provide information about the Red Planet's atmosphere, climate history and potential habitability in greater detail than ever before. The MAVEN spacecraft will be launched in late 2013.
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Hubble Space Telescope sees overlapping galaxies
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured a rare alignment between two spiral galaxies. The outer rim of a small, foreground galaxy is silhouetted in front of a larger background galaxy. Skeletal tentacles of dust can be seen extending beyond the small galaxy's disk of starlight.
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Minotaur 4 pathfinder completed at Vandenberg -- Orbital Sciences has completed the full-scale "pathfinder" ground operations of the Minotaur 4 space launch vehicle in preparation for its inaugural flight that is currently scheduled to take place in early 2009.
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Likely planet imaged around a Sun-like star
Astronomers have unveiled what is likely the first picture of a planet around a normal star similar to the Sun. The images show the young star, which lies about 500 light-years from Earth, and a companion with a mass about eight times that of Jupiter.
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Our star could be far from where it started
A long-standing scientific belief holds that stars tend to hang out in the same general part of a galaxy where they originally formed. Some astrophysicists have recently questioned whether that is true, and now new simulations show that, at least in galaxies similar to our own Milky Way, stars such as the sun can migrate great distances.
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1843 stellar eruption may be new type of explosion
Scientists have shown that the outbursts of Eta Carinae, the Milky Way's biggest, brightest and perhaps most studied star after the Sun, could be driven by an entirely new type of stellar explosion that is fainter than a typical supernova.
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Mission control appears to escape major damage
A rideout team at the Johnson Space Center endured a virtual direct hit from Hurricane Ike early Saturday, firing up generators to keep sensitive computer and communications gear in mission control on line when power was lost. A detailed assessment is not yet available, but officials said no injuries were reported and the space center appeared to escape major damage.
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Phoenix lander sees, feels Martian whirlwinds in action
After three months of performing experiments in the north polar regions of Mars, NASA's Phoenix Lander has finally seen dust devils, and sensed a dip in air pressure as one passed nearby.
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New gear for Hubble readied for launch pad
After an intense summer of long hours and tight schedules, ground technicians packing the new science instruments and equipment for launch to the Hubble Space Telescope are nearing the finish line.
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Endeavour moved from hangar to assembly building
In preparation for its role as a standby rescue craft during next month's Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission and the scheduled November logistics run to the international space station, shuttle Endeavour was moved to the Vehicle Assembly Building on Thursday morning.
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Russian freighter docking to station postponed
Friday's planned docking of the Russian-made Progress resupply ship to the international space station has been postponed until next Wednesday due to Houston's mission control being evacuated for Hurricane Ike. The cargo vessel will be placed in a parking orbit for the next few days. NASA said Houston is required to command various station systems for the docking event.
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Hurricane Ike shuts down Johnson Space Center
With Hurricane Ike bearing down on the coast of Texas, NASA managers Thursday activated a rudimentary mission control center near Austin and ordered agency and contractor employees to evacuate the Johnson Space Center. A program-level flight readiness review for the next shuttle mission - a flight to service the Hubble Space Telescope - was delayed to next week.
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Cargo ship begins trek to the space station
An unmanned resupply ship took aim on the international space station Wednesday, successfully launching into orbit atop a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
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Gamma-ray burst was aimed squarely at Earth
A flash of light that blinded even small telescopes six months ago was the brightest astronomical explosion ever observed - visible to the naked eye despite originating halfway across the universe.
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Ares I rocket passes review to reach critical milestone -- NASA has taken a major step toward building the nation's next generation launch vehicle with Wednesday's successful completion of the Ares I rocket preliminary design review.
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Hints of planets present in young gas discs
Astronomers have been able to study planet-forming discs around young Sun-like stars in unsurpassed detail, clearly revealing the motion and distribution of the gas in the inner parts of the disc.
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Study finds how Mars' valley networks formed
A new study suggests that ancient features on the surface of Mars called valley networks were carved by recurrent floods during a long period when the martian climate may have been much like that of some arid or semi-arid regions on Earth. An alternative theory that the valleys were carved by catastrophic flooding over a relatively short time is not supported by the new results.
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Successful test of J-2X gas generator -- Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne completed a series of successful tests on a gas generator for the J-2X rocket engine. The J-2X engine will power the nation's new Ares I and Ares V second-stage launch vehicles scheduled to send United States astronauts to the International Space Station and back to the moon by 2020.
Report explores use of Earth data to support national priorities -- The nation faces challenges in utilizing Earth science information to manage resources and protect public health, according to a NASA-sponsored report issued by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.
New NASA space experiment rack to undergo flight tests -- A new space experiment rack under development by NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., and Space Florida will undergo initial tests this week. The rack will fly aboard NASA's first commercially-provided research flights on Zero Gravity Corporation's reduced gravity aircraft.
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See our collection of panoramas that show space shuttle Atlantis traveling from the Vehicle Assembly Building to launch pad 39A for the October mission to extend the life of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
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Fine-tooth comb to measure accelerating Universe
A Nobel Prize-winning technology - a laser frequency "comb" - could bring astronomers a step closer to answering crucial questions about the expanding Universe, and help in the search for extrasolar Earthlike planets.
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Comets under disguise
Planetary scientists have discovered that between five and ten percent of Near Earth Objects could be comets impersonating asteroids, and plan to find ways to reveal their true identity.
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Cassini images ring arcs among Saturn's moons
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has detected a faint, partial ring orbiting with one small moon of Saturn, and has confirmed the presence of another partial ring orbiting with a second moon. This is further evidence that most of the planet's small, inner moons orbit within partial or complete rings.
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High-res commercial Earth imager launched to space
A Delta 2 rocket thundered out of America's western spaceport Saturday and put into orbit a commercial Earth-imaging satellite that promises to offer a sharper clarity than any private satellite launched before it.
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China could launch next manned flight this month
China launched two disaster monitoring satellites Saturday as officials announced the country's next piloted space mission could occur before the end of September, state media reported.
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Rosetta asteroid flyby reveals diamond in the sky
Europe's comet chaser, Rosetta, last night flew by a small body in the main asteroid belt, asteroid Steins, collecting a wealth of information about this rare type of minor Solar System body.
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Phoenix finds Martian soil perplexingly dry
Although NASA's Phoenix Mars lander has sensed a rise and fall in humidity in the air around the spacecraft, the Martian soil itself is found to be thoroughly and perplexingly dry.
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Jules Verne cargo ship departs the space station
Europe's first state-of-the-art Automated Transfer Vehicle departed the international space station Friday after a five-month stay that delivered more than 10,000 pounds of cargo to the complex.
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New launch dates picked for next two shuttles
NASA on Friday formally pushed back the target launch dates for shuttle Atlantis' servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope and Endeavour's logistics run to the space station.
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U.S. astronauts may be left without rides to station
NASA Administrator Mike Griffin says it is likely the U.S. segment of the space station will have to be unmanned for at least some portion of 2012 because legislation that would allow the agency to buy seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft is at a virtual standstill.
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Atlantis travels to launch pad for Hubble mission
The space shuttle that will make the fifth and final servicing call on the Hubble Space Telescope was rolled to the launch pad Thursday for its October mission to extend the life and vision of the famous observatory.
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Closest look ever at the edge of a black hole
Astronomers have taken the closest look ever at the giant black hole in the center of the Milky Way. By combining telescopes in Hawaii, Arizona, and California, they detected structure at a tiny angular scale of 37 micro-arcseconds - the equivalent of a baseball seen on the surface of the moon, 240,000 miles distant. These observations are among the highest resolution ever done in astronomy.
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Analysis begins on Mars lander's deepest soil sample
Scientists have begun to analyze a sample of soil delivered to NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's wet chemistry experiment from the deepest trench dug so far in the Martian arctic plains.
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OTHER HEADLINES Additional stories today
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Heritage lunar engine fired up once again -- Engineers from NASA and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne successfully completed a series of hot-fire altitude tests using liquid methane on the RS-18 engine. The tests, conducted at White Sands test facility in New Mexico, are part of the technology development for NASA's Constellation program, and gathered important data on ignition, performance measurement, and rapid start and stop.
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Hubble sees magnetic monster in erupting galaxy
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has found an answer to a long-standing puzzle by resolving giant but delicate filaments shaped by a strong magnetic field around the active galaxy NGC 1275. It is the most striking example of the influence of the immense tentacles of extragalactic magnetic fields, say researchers.
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Origin of Crab Nebula's high-energy emission found
Thanks to data from ESA's Integral gamma-ray observatory, scientists have been able to locate where particles in the vicinity of the rotating neutron-star in the Crab Nebula are accelerated to immense energies.
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Mars rover Opportunity ascends out of crater
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has climbed out of the large crater that it had been examining from the inside since last September.
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Phoenix mission conducting extended activities on Mars
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, having completed its 90-day primary mission, is continuing its science collection activities. Science and engineering teams are looking forward to at least another month of Martian exploration.
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Five RapidEye remote sensing satellites launched
The Dnepr rocket, a weapon of war converted for peaceful applications, bolted out of an underground silo early Friday and delivered five German agricultural imaging satellites to orbit.
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The missing link between meteorites and asteroids
Scientists have often wondered why only a tiny fraction of meteorites found on Earth match the vast majority of asteroids that orbit in our local neighbourhood, but new research suggests the solution could be in the Sun.
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Earth's leaky atmosphere
ESA's formation-flying Cluster satellites have discovered the physical mechanism that is driving the constant leak of oxygen out of Earth's atmosphere and into space: the Earth's own magnetic field.
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Clash of clusters provides new dark matter clue
A dramatic collision between galaxy clusters captured by the Hubble and Chandra space telescopes provides striking evidence for the existence of dark matter as it separates from ordinary matter.
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Rover Opportunity to leave Victoria Crater
After nearly a year of daring exploration within Victoria Crater, NASA's Mars Exploration rover Opportunity is heading back out to the surrounding Martian plains to examine exposed ancient rock layers, and boulders thrown from massive impact events.
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Atlantis rollout to pad delayed a few days
Troubles getting the liquid hydrogen umbilical connected between space shuttle Atlantis and its external fuel tank inside the Vehicle Assembly Building has delayed the rollout to launch pad 39A.
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GLAST, renamed Fermi, reveals first all-sky image
NASA's newest space observatory GLAST has begun its mission of exploring the Universe in high-energy gamma rays and has been renamed the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope in honour of Professor Enrico Fermi, a pioneer of high-energy physics on which the mission is founded.
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XMM discovers monster galaxy cluster
ESA's orbiting X-ray observatory XMM-Newton has discovered a cosmic needle in the haystack of space: the most massive galaxy cluster ever seen in the distant Universe, and one which confirms the existence of dark energy.
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Generations of stars pose for family portrait
In celebration of Spitzer's five years in orbit, a stunning new image reveals the family portrait of a star-forming inferno studded with multiple generations of brilliant stars, and provides dramatic new evidence that massive stars can trigger the birth of stellar newborns through their savage winds and radiation.
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Phoenix lander digs into extended mission on Mars
Today, the 90th Martian sol and the end of the originally planned primary mission, Phoenix will perform the challenging task of scooping up soil from the deepest trench ever dug on Mars.
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Atlantis rolls to the Vehicle Assembly Building
After spending four extra days parked inside its hangar while Tropical Storm Fay poured on the Kennedy Space Center, shuttle Atlantis finally moved to the Vehicle Assembly Building on Friday night in preparation for its October launch to the Hubble Space Telescope.
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The interplanetary mapping maverick
In an exclusive interview to coincide with the September issue of Astronomy Now, the Planetary Science Institute's Dr Robert Gaskell discusses his innovative mapping technique that is bringing the diverse surfaces of the Solar System to life.
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Most black holes might come in only small and large
Black holes are sometimes huge cosmic beasts, billions of times the mass of our sun, and sometimes petite with just a few times the sun's mass. But do black holes also come in size medium? A new study suggests that, for the most part, the answer is no.
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Phoenix lander explores Mars site by trenching
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander scientists and engineers are continuing to dig into the area around the lander with the spacecraft's robotic arm, looking for new materials to analyze and examining the soil and ice subsurface structure.
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Proposals made to solve Ares 1 vibration worry
NASA hopes to resolve concern about high vibrations in its new Ares 1 rocket by using a shock absorber-like passive damper between the first and second stages and a computer-controlled, motor-driven system of spring-mounted weights at the base of the booster to actively cancel out unwanted up-and-down oscillations.
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Proton launcher returns to commercial service
Commercial flights of Russia's Proton rocket successfully resumed Monday night, putting into orbit a sophisticated mobile communications satellite that joins two other spacecraft to offer global broadband coverage.
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New Milky Way map reveals a complicated outer galaxy
The halo of stars that envelops the Milky Way galaxy is like a river delta criss-crossed by stellar streams large and small, according to new data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. While the largest rivers of this delta have been mapped out over the last decade, analysis of the new map shows that smaller streams can be found throughout the stellar halo.
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NASA engineers complete test series for Ares I rocket -- Engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., have completed a series of tests on a key component of the J-2X engine. The J-2X powers the upper stage of the Ares I rocket, which will launch human explorers to the International Space Station and to the moon.
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Solar System's new member
An ice-rock minor planet 30 to 60 miles in diameter, discovered two years ago between the orbits of Uranus and Neptune could be a member of the "inner Oort Cloud." But this is only part of the story.
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Phoenix microscope takes first image of Martian dust
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has taken the first-ever image of a single particle of Mars' ubiquitous dust, using its atomic force microscope. The particle is shown at higher magnification than anything ever seen from another world.
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Ariane 5 rocket goes up for the fifth time this year
Europe's workhorse Ariane 5 rocket took off from a South American space base Thursday on its third launch in barely two months, this time with Japanese and U.S. television broadcasting satellites.
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OUR ARIANE ARCHIVE
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NASA opts to leave shuttle launch dates as scheduled
Space shuttle program leaders met Thursday and discussed a proposal to move up the target launch dates for the next two missions in October and November. But in the end officials decided to leave the Hubble servicing mission and space station flight as originally scheduled on Oct. 8 and Nov. 10.
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Pluto debate continues
In 2006, the International Astronomical Union reclassified Solar System objects such that Pluto became a dwarf planet, and in June of this year it was placed into the 'plutoid' sub-category. Now astronomers have reopened the debate at this week's Great Planet Debate: Science as a Process conference.
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Crane mishap at Baikonur damages commercial craft
A Malaysian communications satellite being prepared for launch next week could be grounded for at least several months after a crane struck the fuel-laden spacecraft at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
FULL STORY - updated
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Cassini returns pictures from Monday's flyby
Cassini is beaming back its first images from Monday's close encounter with Saturn's moon Enceladus. The spacecraft came within 30 miles of the moon to study fissures dubbed "tiger stripes" where geysers of water-ice and vapor jet out into space.
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Delta 2 rocket launch of GeoEye craft postponed
Launch of a commercial Earth-imaging satellite aboard a Delta 2 rocket originally scheduled to occur next week from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California will be pushed into early September.
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Cassini begins transmitting data from Enceladus flyby
The Cassini spacecraft has started sending data to Earth following a close flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus. During closest approach on Monday, Cassini successfully passed only 30 miles from the surface of the tiny moon.
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NASA slips internal target for first manned Orion flight
NASA's internal planning date for the first manned launch of the new Orion spacecraft that will replace the space shuttle after the winged orbiters are retired in 2010 has slipped one year, from September 2013 to September 2014. The new schedule, managers said Monday, reflects a more realistic assessment of projected funding, contract realities and technical requirements in the absence of any significant additional support from Congress.
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Soil studies continue at Mars lander site
Vibration of the screen above a laboratory oven on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander on Saturday succeeded in getting enough soil into the oven to begin analysis. Commands were sent for the lander's Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA) to begin analysis Sunday of the soil sample from a trench called "Rosy Red."
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Hubble unveils colorful and turbulent star-birth region
The Hubble Space Telescope is celebrating its 100,000th orbit around the Earth with the release of a spectacular image of a fantasy-like landscape embellished with scenes of stellar birth and renewal.
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Cassini prepares to swoop by geyser-spewing moon
Fractures, or "tiger stripes," where icy jets erupt on Saturn's moon Enceladus will be the target of a close flyby by the Cassini spacecraft on Monday, zooming past the tiny moon a mere 30 miles from the surface.
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Computer simulations put Solar System in its place
Traditional theories of Solar System formation assume our neighbourhood to be pretty run of the mill, but in a new study using data from 300 exoplanets discovered orbiting other stars, our planetary haven turns out to be one of a kind.
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Hubble's odometer turns over 100,000 orbits of Earth
The odometer on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is about to turn over 100,000. That's not 100,000 miles but the number of orbits it has made around Earth since it was launched aboard the space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990.
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Collision between rocket stages doomed Falcon 1
The investigation into Saturday night's failed SpaceX Falcon 1 launch has revealed the spent first stage separated and then recontacted the second stage due to residual thrust from the main engine, the company's founder says.
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Jupiter and Saturn full of liquid metal helium
A strange, metal brew lies buried deep within Jupiter and Saturn, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and in London.
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Dark matter clumps and streams in Milky Way
Using powerful supercomputer simulations, researchers have reason to believe that dense clumps and streams of dark matter lurk in the inner regions of the Milky Way's galactic halo, in the same neighborhood as our Solar System.
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Phoenix data suggests perchlorates in Mars soil
An instrument aboard NASA's Phoenix Mars lander has detected what may be perchlorate in the soil of the red planet's northern latitudes, an unexpected, still tentative discovery that has touched off a flurry of speculation about whether Mars is now, or has ever been, habitable.
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Globular clusters tell tale of nearby galaxy metropolis
The Hubble Space Telescope has identified thousands of more than 5 billion years old globular clusters in the Virgo cluster of galaxies. One of the results of these discoveries led astronomers to understand more about the life and evolution of cannibal galaxies.
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'Cosmic ghost' discovered by volunteer astronomer
When Yale astrophysicist Kevin Schawinski and his colleagues at Oxford University enlisted public support in cataloguing galaxies, they never envisioned the strange object Hanny van Arkel found in archived images of the night sky.
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Martian soil data from Phoenix being analyzed
Scientists are analyzing results from soil samples delivered several weeks ago to science instruments on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander to understand the landing site's soil chemistry and mineralogy.
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Hubble finds large sample of very distant galaxies
New Hubble Space Telescope observations of six spectacular galaxy clusters acting as gravitational lenses have given significant insights into the early stages of the Universe.
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Falcon 1 suffers another setback
The Falcon 1 rocket, a sleek black-and-white booster built to usher in an era of low-cost space travel, was bitten by failure for the third time in three tries during a dramatic Saturday night launch from the central Pacific.
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Obama vows NASA support during visit to Florida
Sen. Barack Obama held a town hall meeting near the Kennedy Space Center Saturday and vowed strong support for NASA, saying he favors at least one shuttle flight beyond the 10 missions left on the agency's manifest. Obama also said he would work to close the gap between the end of shuttle operations and the debut of the Orion spacecraft that will replace it and said earlier reports that he would divert money from NASA's next manned spacecraft to education were unfounded.
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Supervoids, superclusters point to dark energy
By studying regions of space with an above and below average concentration of galaxies - superclusters and supervoids, respectively - a team of astronomers have found direct evidence for the existence of dark energy.
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Phoenix confirms water as mission gets extended
Laboratory tests aboard NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander have identified water in a soil sample. The lander's robotic arm delivered the sample Wednesday to an instrument that identifies vapors produced by the heating of samples.
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The first stars
The universe began with the Big Bang about 13.7 billion years ago. Very soon after that event, the first stars formed. Today, those stars are dead and gone leaving little evidence of their size and composition behind. Now, a new computer simulation now offers the most detailed picture yet of how these first stars came into existence.
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Lunar mapper and military vehicle swap launch slots
The launch of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been delayed until next February to make room on the Atlas 5 rocket's cramped East Coast manifest for a secretive Air Force space plane, government officials said this week.
FULL STORY - updated!
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NASA confirms liquid lake on Saturn's moon Titan
NASA scientists have concluded that at least one of the large lakes observed on Saturn's moon Titan contains liquid hydrocarbons, and have positively identified the presence of ethane. This makes Titan the only body in our solar system beyond Earth known to have liquid on its surface.
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Jason 2 satellite begins mapping Earth's oceans
Less than a month after launch, the NASA-French space agency Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason 2 oceanography satellite has produced its first complete maps of global ocean surface topography, surface wave height and wind speed.
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LAUNCH COVERAGE
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Barred spiral galaxies are latecomers to the universe
In a landmark study of more than 2,000 spiral galaxies from the largest galaxy census conducted by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers found that so-called barred spiral galaxies were far less plentiful 7 billion years ago than they are today, in the local universe.
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Satellite providing scintillation forecast data
Whether it's static interrupting a radio station, or crackling noises interfering with a theater commander's attempt to contact a deployed unit, scintillation can cause communication chaos.
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Phoenix lander working with sticky Martian soil
Scientists and engineers on NASA's Phoenix Mars Mission spent the weekend examining how the icy soil on Mars interacts with the scoop on the lander's robotic arm, while trying different techniques to deliver a sample to one of the instruments.
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OTHER HEADLINES Additional stories today
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Ancient galactic magnetic fields stronger than expected -- Mining the far reaches of the universe for clues about its past, a team of scientists has proposed that magnetic fields of ancient galaxies like ours were just as strong as those existing today, prompting a rethinking of how our galaxy and others may have formed.
NASA successfully tests parachute for Ares rocket -- NASA and industry engineers have successfully completed the first drop test of a drogue parachute for the Ares I rocket. The drogue parachute is designed to slow the rapid descent of the spent first-stage motor, cast off by the Ares I rocket during its climb to space.
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Supernova explodes in controversy
The interpretation of supernova explosion SN 2008D, which was captured by a serendipitous Swift telescope observation earlier this year, is causing controversy among different research groups who argue its origin and evolution as either a 'normal' supernova, or something more reminiscent of a gamma-ray burst.
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Phoenix revises method to deliver icy sample
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's robotic arm will use a revised collection-and-delivery sequence overnight Sunday with the goal of depositing an icy soil sample in the lander's oven.
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Stellar vampires make the Universe dusty
For the first time, astronomers have witnessed the expulsion of a shell of dusty gas around a freshly erupted nova and tracked its evolution for over 200 days, providing a new and invaluable way of estimating the distances to nearby novae.
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Phoenix collects icy soil but needs to work on delivery
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's robotic arm collected a more than adequate amount of icy soil for baking in one of the lander's ovens but will need to adjust how it delivers samples.
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NASA changes plans for advancing shuttle dates
Space shuttle program managers Friday modified an official "change request" that, if approved, will move up the next two shuttle launchings by three days each, not six as initially requested.
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OTHER HEADLINES Additional stories today
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Soyuz 2-1b rocket launches classified military payload -- Russia launched a military reconnaissance satellite Saturday using a modernized version of the Soyuz rocket, according to news reports.
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Satellites discover what powers Northern Lights
Researchers using a fleet of five NASA satellites have discovered that explosions of magnetic energy a third of the way to the moon power substorms that cause sudden brightenings and rapid movements of the aurora borealis, called the Northern Lights.
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COROT finds exoplanet orbiting Sun-like star
A team of European scientists working with COROT have discovered an exoplanet orbiting a star slightly more massive than the Sun. After just 555 days in orbit, the mission has now observed more than 50,000 stars and is adding significantly to our knowledge of the fundamental workings of stars.
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Astronomers see disks surrounding black holes
For the first time, a team of international researchers has found a way to view the accretion disks surrounding black holes and verify that their true electromagnetic spectra match what astronomers have long predicted they would be.
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Phoenix lander prepares for next sample analysis
The latest activities of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander have moved the mission closer to analyzing a sample of material, possibly icy soil, from a hard layer at the bottom of a shallow trench beside the lander.
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New project to develop GPS-like system for moon
The same Ohio State University researcher who is helping rovers navigate on Mars is leading a new effort to help humans navigate on the moon.
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Ocean surface a boon for extreme event forecasts
For humans in the path of destructive hurricanes and tsunamis, an accurate warning of the pending event is critical for damage control and survival. Such warnings, however, require a solid base of scientific observations, and a new satellite is ready for the job.
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Using gravitational lensing to weigh 70 galaxies
An international team of astronomers recently announced a finding that helps to settle a long-standing debate over the relationship between mass and luminosity in galaxies.
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Radar reconnaissance spacecraft launched
The capstone of a fleet of German military satellites rocketed into space from Russia early Tuesday, completing a series of five launchings of spacecraft designed to scout locations around the world.
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European orbiter begins closing in on Venus
Starting last week, spacecraft controllers have been executing a series of manoeuvres to gradually bring Venus Express closer to its host planet. In its modified orbit, the spacecraft will be able to observe unexplored regions and investigate phenomena that were not within its reach before.
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Spitzer sees 'no organics' zone around Pinwheel
The Pinwheel galaxy is gussied up in infrared light in a new picture from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The fluffy-looking galaxy is dominated by a mishmash of spiral arms. In Spitzer's new view, in which infrared light is color coded, the galaxy sports a swirling blue center and a unique, coral-red outer ring.
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Brightest star in the galaxy has new competition
A contender for the title of brightest star in our Milky Way galaxy has been unearthed in the dusty metropolis of the galaxy's center. Nicknamed the "Peony nebula star," the bright stellar bulb blazes with the light of an estimated 3.2 million suns.
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XMM-Newton discovers the star that everyone missed
XMM-Newton has discovered an exploding star in the Milky Way. Usually that would be important in itself, but this time there is a special twist. Calculations show that the explosion must have been clearly visible to the unaided eye but was missed by the legions of star watchers around the planet.
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OTHER HEADLINES Additional stories today
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Fourth dwarf planet named -- The International Astronomical Union has given the name Makemake to the newest member of the family of dwarf planets - the object formerly known as 2005 FY9 - after the Polynesian creator of humanity and the god of fertility.
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Video flashback on this anniversary of Apollo 11
One of the defining moments of the 20th century was mankind's voyage to the moon. This video selection allows you to relive the mission of Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins on Apollo 11.
VIDEO DIRECTORY
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A new way developed to weigh giant black holes
How do you weigh the biggest black holes in the universe? One answer now comes from a completely new and independent technique that astronomers have developed using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.
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NASA's Deep Impact films Earth as an alien world
NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft has created a video of the moon passing in front of Earth as seen from the probe's point of view 31 million miles away. Scientists are using the movie to develop techniques to study other planets.
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Jupiter red spots mix it up
A new sequence of Hubble Space Telescope images offers an unprecedented view of a planetary game of Pac-Man among three red spots clustered together in Jupiter's atmosphere.
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OTHER HEADLINES Additional stories today
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NASA picks crew for STS-128 mission to space station -- NASA has assigned the crew for space shuttle mission STS-128 that is targeted for launch next July. The flight will carry science and storage racks to the International Space Station.
Joint statement by the ISS Heads of Agency -- The Heads of the International Space Station Agencies from Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia and the United States met in Paris on Thursday to review ISS cooperation.
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Crew of most recent shuttle mission tells its story
Space shuttle Discovery's flight to the space station in June delivered and attached the outpost's largest module -- the Kibo science laboratory built by Japan. The STS-124 astronauts recap the mission in this post-flight presentation.
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Mars Express to rendezvous with Martian moon
Scientists and engineers are preparing the European Space Agency's Mars Express for a pair of close fly-bys of the Martian moon Phobos. Passing within 100 km of the surface, the spacecraft will conduct some of the most detailed investigations of the moon to date.
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Ancient Mars had diverse, wet environments
Mars once hosted vast lakes, flowing rivers and a variety of other wet environments that had the potential to support life, according to two new studies based on data from instruments on board NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
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Phoenix lander rasps frozen layer, collects sample
A powered rasp on the back of the robotic arm scoop of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander successfully drilled into the frozen soil and loosened material that was collected in the lander's scoop.
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Sea Launch boosts relay satellite for DISH Network
A powerful new broadcaster for the DISH Network satellite television system was successfully shot into space Wednesday aboard a multi-national Sea Launch Zenit 3SL rocket.
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PANORAMA GALLERY
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Station residents complete another spacewalk
The two Russian cosmonauts of the space station's Expedition 17 crew ventured outside their orbital home Tuesday afternoon for the second spacewalk in less than a week.
MISSION STATUS CENTER
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Phoenix lander to begin rasping frozen layer of Mars
A powered rasp on the back of the robotic arm scoop of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander is being tested for the first time on Mars in gathering sample shavings of ice.
FULL STORY
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Next Delta 2 rocket to carry sharp-eyed spacecraft
Launch preparations are underway at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to ready a commercial Earth-imaging spacecraft for its deployment into orbit by a Delta 2 rocket.
FULL STORY - updated
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Phoenix extending trench
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander is using its arm to enlarge an exposure of hard subsurface material expected to yield a sample of ice-rich soil for analysis in one of the lander's ovens.
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Exploding asteroid theory strengthened by new clues
Was the course of life on the planet altered 12,900 years ago by a giant comet exploding over Canada? Geological evidence found in Ohio and Indiana in recent weeks suggests the answer is affirmative.
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Mystery star cluster has three different birthdays
Imagine having three clocks in your house, each chiming at a different time. Astronomers have found the equivalent of three out-of-sync "clocks" in the ancient open star cluster NGC 6791. The dilemma may fundamentally challenge the way astronomers estimate cluster ages, researchers said.
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Radio observations probe Orion Nebula for exoplanets
A detailed survey of stars in the Orion Nebula has found that fewer than 10 percent have enough surrounding dust to make Jupiter-sized planets, according to a new report.
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Rare 'star-making machine' found in distant universe
Astronomers have uncovered an extreme stellar machine -- a galaxy in the very remote universe pumping out stars at a surprising rate of up to 4,000 per year. In comparison, our own Milky Way galaxy turns out an average of just 10 stars per year.
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Spacewalkers cut open Soyuz and remove pyrobolt
Cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko cut open insulation on their Soyuz re-entry vehicle Thursday, removed an explosive bolt from a suspect connector and locked it in a blast-proof sleeve for return to Earth. The unprecedented space surgery was ordered to help Russian engineers troubleshoot a module separation problem that caused steep, rougher-than-usual descents during the last two Soyuz landings.
SPACEWALK ENDS
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Spaceflight Now recently visited Sea Launch's Home Port in Long Beach, California, where an international team of technicians and engineers blend marine vessels and space hardware into a unique combination for placing commercial communications satellites into Earth orbit.
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PANORAMA GALLERY
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Moon water discovery dampens formation theory
Using new techniques, scientists have discovered for the first time that tiny beads of volcanic glasses collected from two Apollo missions to the Moon contain water. The researchers found that, contrary to previous thought, water was not entirely vaporized in the violent events that formed the Moon.
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Study puts solar spin on asteroids and their moons
Asteroids with moons, which scientists call binary asteroids, are common in the solar system. A longstanding question has been how the majority of such moons are formed. In this week's issue of the journal Nature, a trio of astronomers from Maryland and France say the surprising answer is sunlight, which can increase or decrease the spin rate of an asteroid.
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Sample-collection tests by Phoenix lander continue
Phoenix Mars Lander's science and engineering teams are testing methods to get an icy sample into the Robotic Arm scoop for delivery to the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer.
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Space station passes over Hurricane Bertha
An external camera on the International Space Station captured footage of Hurricane Bertha on Tuesday morning as the orbiting complex flew 217 miles above the Atlantic Ocean. The hurricane was packing winds about about 120 miles per hour.
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NASA sets schedule for remaining shuttle flights
NASA has unveiled a revised manifest for the final 10 flights in the space shuttle program, reflecting previously forecast delays across the board because of post-Columbia external tank safety upgrades that have stretched out deliveries. But shuttle Program Manager John Shannon said he's confident NASA can complete the space station and retire the shuttle fleet in 2010 as planned.
FULL STORY
SHUTTLE FLIGHT CHART
SUMMARIES OF REMAINING FLIGHTS
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Two satellites in orbit after good ride from Ariane 5
An Ariane 5 rocket roared out of its jungle launch base Monday to put Arab and Asian commercial communications satellites into space, marking yet another successful ascent for the heavy-duty booster.
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Phoenix lander delivers soil-chemistry sample
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander used its robotic arm to deliver a second sample of soil for analysis by the spacecraft's wet chemistry laboratory, data received from the spacecraft confirmed.
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Rosetta awakes from hibernation for asteroid
Spacecraft controllers have just awoken Rosetta from hibernation to prepare for its encounter with an asteroid in September. ESA's comet chaser will study the relatively rare asteroid as it flies by on its way to comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
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Universe's stars and stripes
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a delicate ribbon of gas floating eerily in our Galaxy, a ghostly reminder of a supernova explosion that occurred over 1,000 years ago, and which is still expanding at almost 10 million kilometres per hour today.
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Settling old debates, new discoveries at Mercury
Scientists have argued about the origins of Mercury's smooth plains and the source of its magnetic field for over 30 years. Now, analyses of data from the January 2008 flyby of the planet by the MESSENGER spacecraft have shown that volcanoes were involved in plains formation and suggest that its magnetic field is actively produced in the planet's core and is not a frozen relic.
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Voyager 2 measures solar wind termination shock
Two University of Iowa space physicists report that the Voyager 2 spacecraft, which has been traveling outward from the Sun for 31 years, has made the first direct observations of the solar wind termination shock.
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STEREO craft examine solar system's invisible frontier
NASA's sun-focused STEREO spacecraft unexpectedly detected particles from the edge of the solar system last year, allowing University of California, Berkeley, scientists to map for the first time the energized particles in the region where the hot solar wind slams into the cold interstellar medium.
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Phoenix set for next, possibly last bake in TEGA
After a busy weekend of scraping up piles of icy soil, Phoenix is preparing its ovens to sniff out the ingredients of this precious material, but a short circuit problem could make this the last trip to the TEGA instrument on Phoenix.
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Redesigned Proton upper stage to fly in mid-August
Commercial flights of Russia's Proton rocket will resume next month, officials announced Tuesday, following redesign efforts on the booster's upper stage.
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Mission to answer lingering questions from the sea
Ocean tides and currents across the globe still hold within their watery grasp the key to unanswered questions about our planet. Scientists hope the new follow-on mission to the Jason 1 and Topex/Poseidon satellite missions, equipped with the latest high-tech instruments, will bring them closer to answering broad fundamental questions.
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Offshore industries helped dodge swirling waters
Hurricanes aren't the only hazards spinning up in the Gulf of Mexico -- they have a liquid counterpart in the waters below called ocean eddies. Offshore industries, such as oil and gas companies, have to keep a weather eye on both. Satellite ocean observations are a standard part of marine operations around the world.
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Delta 2 rocket did its job successfully, NASA says
Initial concerns about the performance of the Delta 2 rocket that launched the Jason 2 oceanography satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California earlier this month have proven unfounded, officials say.
MISSION STATUS CENTER
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New gamma ray burst instrument powers up
NASA's GLAST Burst Monitor Instrument Operations Center in Huntsville, Ala., the focal point for observing gamma ray bursts, was alive with energy as scientists gathered to witness instrument activation last week.
FULL STORY
GLAST LAUNCH COVERAGE
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Learning from Tunguska
The impact event that rocked the unsuspecting Siberian outback 100 years ago today may hold the secrets to the protection of our precious blue planet against a similar cosmic assault in the future.
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SOHO finds 1,500th comet
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) is celebrating the discovery of 1,500 comets since the mission began 13 years ago, making it more successful than all other comet discoverers throughout history put together.
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100 years since Tunguska
At around 7:17 on the morning of June 30, 1908, a man based at the trading post at Vanavara in Siberia is sitting on his front porch. In a moment, 40 miles from the center of an immense blast of unknown origin, he will be hurled from his chair and the heat will be so intense he will feel as though his shirt is on fire.
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Mars lander characterizes conditions near north pole
Martian soil analyzed by NASA's Phoenix lander could likely support plant life under the right conditions. "We basically have found what appears to be the nutrients to support life," says the lead scientist for the wet chemistry lab aboard the craft.
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Questions await as Cassini begins a new mission
NASA's Cassini mission is closing one chapter of its journey at Saturn and embarking on a new one with a two-year mission that will address new questions and bring it closer to two of its most intriguing targets -- Titan and Enceladus.
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Astronaut Barbara Morgan to leave NASA
Veteran space shuttle astronaut Barbara R. Morgan will leave NASA in August to become an educator at Idaho's Boise State University. Morgan was backup to Christa McAuliffe and later became the agency's first educator astronaut.
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STORE: STS-118 PIN - STS-118 PATCH
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Russian military spacecraft launched by Proton booster
Russia launched a Proton rocket Thursday night with an early warning satellite to defend the country against missile attacks. The launch was the first mission for the Proton since a different version of the booster failed in March.
FULL STORY
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NASA approves shuttle launch pad repair plan
Shuttle program managers Thursday approved a plan to strip away fire bricks from damaged sections of the "flame trench" at launch pad 39A, to erect a steel grid over the exposed concrete back wall and to spray on a thick coating of heat-resistant Fondu Fyre to protect the structure from super-hot shuttle booster exhaust.
FULL STORY
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Mars air once had moisture, new soil analysis says
A new analysis of Martian soil data suggests that there was once enough water in the planet's atmosphere for a light drizzle or dew to hit the ground, leaving tell-tale signs of its interaction with the planet's surface.
FULL STORY
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Asteroid-hunting satellite will be a world first
Canada is building the world's first space telescope designed to detect and track asteroids as well as satellites. Called NEOSSat, this spacecraft will provide a significant improvement in surveillance of asteroids that pose a collision hazard with Earth and innovative technologies for tracking satellites in orbit high above our planet.
FULL STORY
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Giant impact explains the Mars dichotomy
The surface landscape of Mars, divided into lowlands in the north and highlands in the south, has long perplexed planetary scientists. Was it sculpted by several small impacts, via mantle convection in the planet's interior, or by one giant impact? Now scientists have shown through computer modeling that the Mars dichotomy, as the divided terrain has been termed, can indeed be explained by one giant impact early in the planet's history.
FULL STORY
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Phoenix Mars lander puts soil in chemistry lab
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander placed a sample of Martian soil in the spacecraft's wet chemistry laboratory today for the first time. Results from that instrument, part of Phoenix's Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer, are expected to provide the first measurement of the acidity or alkalinity of the planet's soil.
FULL STORY
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Additional video from Delta launch of Jason 2
More video coverage has been posted to Spaceflight Now+Plus from last week's Delta 2 rocket launch that put the Jason 2 oceanography satellite into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base.
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Water-seeking moon craft passes major tests
NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite is one step closer to determining whether water ice exists in a permanently shadowed crater near the lunar south pole, having passed rigorous preflight testing earlier this month.
FULL STORY
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Galaxy cannibals eat their neighbors
Previously unseen galactic cannibalism within the supermassive black holes that occupy the centres of Seyfert galaxies has been revealed by radio observations courtesy of the Very Large Array.
FULL STORY
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SpaceX pushes back launch date for next Falcon 1
The military informed SpaceX last week that mandatory support equipment and tracking stations in the Pacific Ocean are booked through the end of July, forcing officials to delay launch of the next Falcon 1 rocket, the company's founder said.
FULL STORY
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Hawaiian lava holds clues for planetary evolution
Precision analysis of lava samples taken from the Kilauea Iki volcanic crater in Hawaii has given planetary scientists a new tool for reconstructing planetary origins.
FULL STORY
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Earth's laws still apply in distant Universe
One of the most important numbers in physics, the proton-electron mass ratio, is the same in a galaxy six billion light years away as it is here on Earth, according to new research, laying to rest debate about whether the laws of nature vary in different places in the Universe.
FULL STORY
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Phoenix confirms frozen water at landing site
Scientists relishing confirmation of water ice near the surface beside NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander anticipate even bigger discoveries from the robotic mission in the weeks ahead.
FULL STORY
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Black holes have simple feeding habits
The results of a massive observing campaign of spiral galaxy M81 have shed light on the feeding habits of different sized black holes, and provide a benchmark for predicting the properties of a new class of black hole.
FULL STORY
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Satellite flown into space to monitor Earth's oceans
NASA partnered with European scientists to launch an ocean research satellite from California early Friday, giving forecasters a new tool to make more accurate predictions of weather patterns and climate change.
FULL STORY
MISSION STATUS CENTER
PHOTO GALLERY: TOWER ROLLBACK
PHOTO GALLERY: LIFTOFF IMAGES
PHOTO GALLERY: TIME-LAPSE LAUNCH IMAGES
PHOTO GALLERY: ADDITIONAL LAUNCH SHOTS
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Bright chunks dug up by Phoenix must have been ice
Dice-size crumbs of bright material have vanished from inside a trench where they were photographed by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander four days ago, convincing scientists that the material was frozen water that vaporized after digging exposed it.
FULL STORY
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Data relay satellite cluster launched for ORBCOMM
Six new communications relay satellites were launched into orbit Thursday to
rejuvenate a space-based messaging service operated by ORBCOMM Inc.
FULL STORY
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First results from Phoenix lander's bakery
After a difficult time delivering soil samples to one of the ovens onboard Phoenix, the results are now in from the first round of baking: no water, yet.
FULL STORY
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25th anniversary of first American woman in space
Sally Ride became the first American woman in space on June 18, 1983 when she flew aboard space shuttle Challenger on mission STS-7. To mark the anniversary, Spaceflight Now Plus subscribers can watch highlights of the mission and an interview with Ride.
VIDEO INDEX
STORE: STS-7 MISSION PATCH
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Detective astronomers find hidden celestial gem
The European Space Agency's orbiting X-ray observatory XMM-Newton has re-discovered an ignored celestial gem. The object in question is one of the youngest and brightest supernova remnants in the Milky Way, the corpse of a star that exploded around 1,000 years ago.
FULL STORY
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Space shuttle pad repair options being debated
Engineers assessing extensive damage to launch pad 39A during the shuttle Discovery's May 31 takeoff said Monday they are confident the "flame trench" that diverts exhaust to either side can be repaired in time for NASA's next mission, the Oct. 8 launch of shuttle Atlantis on a flight to service the Hubble Space Telescope.
FULL STORY
IMAGES: MONDAY'S MEDIA TOUR
IMAGES: EARLIER PHOTOS OF PAD DAMAGE
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Sun sets on Ulysses mission
After more than 17 years dedicated to exploring the effects of solar activity on the space that surrounds us, the sun is setting on the Ulysses mission and will finally fade into darkness on July 1, but its legacy will live on.
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Trio of super-Earths discovered
A harvest of low mass planets has been discovered with the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, and 45 other candidate planets with masses below 30 Earth masses have also been identified.
FULL STORY
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Discovery back on Earth
Commander Mark Kelly guided the space shuttle Discovery to a sun-drenched Florida landing Saturday, setting down on runway 15 at the Kennedy Space Center to close out a virtually flawless space station assembly mission, leaving a new Japanese lab module behind and bringing flight engineer Garrett Reisman back to Earth after 95 days in space.
FULL STORY
IMAGES: LANDING SEQUENCE
MISSION STATUS CENTER - live updates
MORNING STORY
MAPS: LANDING GROUND TRACKS
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. Q (.pdf download)
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Good weather predicted for landing in Florida
The shuttle Discovery is in good shape and ready for landing Saturday at the Kennedy Space Center to close out a successful space station assembly mission. The Spaceflight Meteorology Group at the Johnson Space Center in Houston is predicting near ideal conditions for the planned 11:15 a.m. EDT touchdown.
LANDING PREVIEW STORY
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NASA says lost object from shuttle no worry for entry
Engineers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston believe a flashing bit of debris spotted floating away from the shuttle Discovery this morning was a clip used to secure thermal insulation in the ship's rudder/speed brake to protect against engine heat during ascent. Flight controllers told the astronauts the lost clip poses no threat to a safe re-entry.
FULL STORY
EARLIER STORY
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Ariane 5 reaches milestone 25th straight success
The Ariane 5 booster rocketed into space from a French Guiana launch pad minutes after sunset Thursday, painting a colorful spectacle in the sky en route to space with a British military communications satellite and a Turkish broadcasting spacecraft.
FULL STORY
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NASA says Hubble plans not threatened by pad repairs
Serious damage to the "flame trench" at launch pad 39A during the shuttle Discovery's May 31 takeoff will require extensive repairs, officials said Thursday, but engineers believe the work can be completed in time to support the planned Oct. 8 launch of shuttle Atlantis on a long-awaited flight to service the Hubble Space Telescope.
FULL STORY
IMAGES: PHOTOS OF PAD DAMAGE
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A new type of comet dust mineral found
NASA researchers have found a new mineral in a material that likely originated from comet 26P/Grigg-Skjellerup, which orbits the Sun once every five years.
FULL STORY
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Pluto assigned 'plutoid' tag in new classification
Almost two years after the International Astronomical Union (IAU) caused a worldwide furore by stripping Pluto of its former status as a 'proper' planet to a dwarf planet, the term 'plutoid' has been introduced to describe "Pluto-like transneptunian dwarf planets."
FULL STORY
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Oven full of Mars
After several attempts, Phoenix has finally succeeded in filling one of its ovens with Martian soil, ready to sniff out and assess its ingredients, such as water.
FULL STORY
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Successful first test of high speed Moon penetrator
High speed penetrators that could one day be used to breach the surface of planets, moons and asteroids have successfully passed their first test in the UK, accelerating to over 1000 kilometres per hour and 20,000 gee at the point of impact.
FULL STORY
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It's an off duty day for shuttle astronauts
The Discovery astronauts took the day off Thursday, enjoying the view from 210 miles up and chatting with family members in private teleconferences. The only mission-related activity on the schedule is a rocket firing to adjust the shuttle's orbit slightly to improve landing opportunities at the Kennedy Space Center.
FULL STORY
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. P (.pdf download)
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NASA launches observatory with gamma ray vision
A Delta 2 rocket roared to life and successfully boosted a $690 million space telescope into orbit Wednesday, the most sophisticated observatory ever built to study the tell-tale high energy gamma rays generated by the most violent explosions and processes in the known universe.
FULL STORY
MISSION STATUS CENTER
IMAGES: MOBILE SERVICE TOWER ROLLBACK
IMAGES: LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY
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NASA considers SARJ work on next shuttle visit
NASA managers are considering a plan for the crew of the next space station assembly mission, scheduled for launch around Nov. 10, to clean up and lubricate a damaged, debris covered solar array drive gear and to replace 12 bearing assemblies in a bid to use the mechanism as long as possible before switching to a backup gear, an official said Wednesday.
FULL STORY
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Shuttle Discovery undocks from the space station
After its successful visit to the space station that delivered Japan's Kibo science laboratory, the largest module for the complex, shuttle Discovery undocked at 7:42 a.m. EDT Wednesday morning to prepare for this weekend's landing.
FULL STORY
PREVIEW STORY
MISSION STATUS CENTER - live updates
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Shuttle crew closes hatches for undocking Wednesday
The shuttle Discovery's crew bid farewell to space station commander Sergei Volkov, Oleg Kononenko and incoming flight engineer Gregory Chamitoff Tuesday, sharing a few final thoughts, hugs and handshakes before closing hatches and preparing the shuttle for undocking early Wednesday.
FULL STORY
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. O (.pdf download)
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Reisman prepares for home after station expedition
The Discovery astronauts are working through a final day of equipment transfers to and from the space station before closing hatches late Tuesday and undocking early Wednesday. Outgoing flight engineer Garrett Reisman, returning to Earth after three months in space, planned to squeeze in a final few hours of handover time, briefing his replacement, Gregory Chamitoff, on the intricacies of life aboard the station.
FULL STORY
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. N (.pdf download)
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Spacewalker says cleaning damaged joint a 'big job'
The powder-like debris dusting the outer edge of the space station's left-side solar array rotary mechanism does not appear to represent a serious problem, spacewalker Mike Fossum said Monday. He said the grease and debris seen on the port solar alpha rotary joint does not look anything like the much more severe contamination that has hobbled the station's right-side SARJ.
FULL STORY
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. M (.pdf download)
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Japan's robotic arm extended and tested
The Discovery astronauts exercised the Japanese Kibo module's robot arm Monday, re-opened the Japanese logistics module mounted atop Kibo Friday and replaced spacesuit battery chargers in the Quest airlock module.
PREVIEW STORY
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. L (.pdf download)
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OTHER HEADLINES Additional stories today
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Communications spacecraft launched by China -- China launched a new communications satellite Monday to beam television programming directly to millions of homes and businesses fitted with small receiving dishes, a state news agency reported.
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Discovery crew completes third and final spacewalk
Perched on the end of the space station's fully extended robot arm, astronaut Ron Garan manually carried a 528-pound nitrogen tank from one side of the lab's main power truss to the other Sunday, enjoying a spectacular there-and-back windshield-wiper ride that carried him eight stories above the research station.
SPACEWALK NO. 3 ENDS
TANK REPLACED, SARJ SAMPLE TAKEN
PREVIEW STORY
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Booster cameras give dramatic views of launch
Hitch a ride up and down aboard the twin solid rocket boosters that launched shuttle Discovery on May 31. Video from cameras mounted on the reusable boosters provides stunning views of the ascent and subsequent splashdown into the Atlantic Ocean. The movies are presented here with launch audio.
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Phoenix tries to deliver first sample to instrument deck
An image beamed back to Earth from the Phoenix Mars lander early Saturday shows the platform's robotic arm has dumped a load of dirt near the opening of a tiny high-temperature oven, but a sensor inside the instrument did not detect any soil traveling through the narrow portal.
FULL STORY
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Japanese robotic arm flexed for first time
The Discovery astronauts unlimbered the Kibo laboratory module's Japanese robot arm Saturday and prepared spacesuits and equipment for a third and final spacewalk Sunday to collect debris samples from a solar array rotary joint and install a tank of pressurized nitrogen for the space station's ammonia coolant loops.
FULL STORY
MISSION STATUS CENTER - live updates
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. K (.pdf download)
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Spacewalkers may gather grease sample from joint
The Discovery astronauts may be asked to collect a sample of the presumed grease seen inside the space station's left-side solar alpha rotary joint. NASA managers have not made a final decision, but engineers would like to get a sample to pin down where the grease might be coming from and astronaut Michael Fossum will be in the area during a third and final spacewalk Sunday.
FULL STORY
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. J (.pdf download)
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Japanese logistics module moved atop the Kibo lab
The Discovery astronauts worked through a busy day inside the international space station Friday, continuing the outfitting of the Japanese Kibo laboratory module and moving a smaller storage module to its permanent home on Kibo's upward-facing port.
PREVIEW STORY
MISSION STATUS CENTER - live updates
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. I (.pdf download)
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Spacewalkers take second excursion outside Kibo
Astronauts Mike Fossum and Ron Garan conducted a seven-hour spacewalk Thursday to mount cameras on Japan's Kibo lab module, remove launch locks and prepare a docking port for the attachment Friday of a Japanese logistics module.
STATION'S OTHER ROTARY JOINT INSPECTED
SPACEWALK NO. 2 BEGINS
PREVIEW STORY
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. G (.pdf download)
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THURSDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING PLAY
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INSPECTION OF THE PORT-SIDE SOLAR ROTARY JOINT PLAY
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FAULTY TV CAMERA REMOVED FROM STATION PORT TRUSS PLAY
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THERMAL SLEEVE PLACED ON KIBO TRUNNION PIN PLAY
VIDEO:
LAUNCH LOCKS RELEASED ON KIBO'S UPPER PORT PLAY
VIDEO:
SPACEWALKERS INSTALL PAIR OF TV CAMERAS ON KIBO PLAY
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MIKE FOSSUM EMERGES FROM AIRLOCK FOR EVA NO. 2 PLAY
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Astronauts enter roomy Kibo laboratory module
The 10 astronauts aboard the shuttle-space station complex opened up the newly installed Japanese Kibo module Wednesday at 5:05 p.m., floated inside and literally bounced off the walls, enjoying a chance for some impromptu zero gravity acrobatics in the roomy new addition.
FULL STORY
IMAGES: OUR LAUNCH GALLERY
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Space station cosmonaut repairs troubled toilet
Cosmonaut-turned-plumber Oleg Kononenko replaced a pump in the space station's balky Russian toilet Wednesday and initial tests indicated the potty's urine collection system was working normally again. While engineers will monitor the toilet's operation to make sure the repair was, in fact, successful, they were hopeful a potentially difficult problem had been resolved.
FULL STORY
MORNING PREVIEW STORY
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. F (.pdf download)
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Japan's science laboratory module added to station
Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, operating the station's robot arm, pulled the 15-ton Kibo lab module from Discovery's cargo bay and attached it to the station on Tuesday as a 7-hour spacewalk concluded.
FULL STORY
SPACEWALK ENDS; KIBO ATTACHED
STATION ROTARY JOINT INSPECTED
SPACEWALKERS PREP KIBO MODULE
INSPECTION BOOM RETRIEVED
EVA NO. 1 BEGINS
PREVIEW STORY
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. E (.pdf download)
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FOSSUM UNBOLTS LOCKS ON KIBO'S WINDOW COVERINGS PLAY
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SPACEWALKERS REMOVE COVERS ON KIBO'S PORT PLAY
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SHUTTLE POWER UMBILICALS UNHOOKED FROM KIBO PLAY
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SHUTTLE INSPECTION BOOM RETRIEVED FROM THE STATION PLAY
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SPACEWALKER RON GARAN REMOVES COVER ON BOOM PLAY
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SPACEWALKER MIKE FOSSUM FREES ARM'S ELBOW CAMERA PLAY
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ANIMATION OF KIBO MODULE INSTALLATION PLAY
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ANIMATION OF INSPECTION BOOM RETRIEVAL PLAY
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NARRATED PREVIEW OF SPACEWALK NO. 1 PLAY
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TUESDAY'S FLIGHT DIRECTOR INTERVIEW PLAY
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THE FLIGHT DAY 3 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
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NASA begins investigation into shuttle pad damage
At the Kennedy Space Center, an investigation has been launched to find out what caused extensive damage to pad 39A as it was pounded by Discovery's exhaust plumes during liftoff Saturday.
FULL STORY
IMAGES: PHOTOS OF PAD DAMAGE
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. D (.pdf download)
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CREW'S REMARKABLE CAMCORDER FOOTAGE FROM MONDAY PLAY
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Phoenix lander's robot arm grabs a scoop of Mars
The robotic arm on NASA's Phoenix lander dug several inches into the Martian tundra this weekend, scraping up bits of soil with what looks like small clumps of embedded ice, mission scientists said Monday.
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Discovery arrives at station to install major module
The shuttle Discovery glided to a gentle docking with the international space station Monday, wrapping up a two-day orbital rendezvous after pausing directly below the lab complex for a slow-motion back flip that gave the lab crew a chance to photograph the orbiter's heat shield.
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PREVIEW STORY
MISSION STATUS CENTER - live updates
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. C (.pdf download)
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SHUTTLE CREW WELCOMED INTO STATION PLAY
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DISCOVERY DOCKS TO SPACE STATION PLAY
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SHUTTLE PERFORMS RENDEZVOUS BACKFLIP PLAY
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NARRATED ANIMATION OF PREVIEWING THE DOCKING PLAY
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THE FLIGHT DAY 2 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
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CREW'S CAMCORDER FOOTAGE FROM FLIGHT DAY 2 PLAY
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Launch pad damaged during Discovery's liftoff
Launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center suffered unusual damage during the shuttle Discovery's blastoff Saturday, NASA officials said Sunday.
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IMAGES: MORE PHOTOS OF DAMAGE
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. B (.pdf download)
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Phoenix sees possible ice
Scientists have discovered what may be ice underneath the Phoenix lander, exposed when soil was blown away as it landed in the northern polar plains of Mars last week.
FULL STORY
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Initial tank pictures show no major foam loss
Close-up photos of the shuttle Discovery's external tank, shot as it drifted away from the orbiter Saturday, show a few relatively minor areas of foam loss but no major damage, NASA officials said Sunday. About five pieces of debris were seen falling away during launch from a camera mounted on the tank, but Mission Management Team Chairman LeRoy Cain said Sunday it's not clear where the presumed foam might have originated.
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Heat shield checks on Sunday's agenda for crew
The Discovery astronauts were awakened for their first full day in space at 7:02 a.m. Sunday by a recording of "Your Wildest Dreams" by the Moody Blues beamed up from mission control. The major items on today's agenda include spacesuit checkout for upcoming station assembly spacewalks; rendezvous and docking preparations; and an inspection of the shuttle's heat shield.
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THE FLIGHT DAY 1 HIGHLIGHTS MOVIE PLAY
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EXTERNAL TANK SEEN AFTER SEPARATION PLAY
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LAUNCH REPLAY: VAB ROOF PLAY
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LAUNCH REPLAY: CAMERA CS-1 PLAY
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LAUNCH REPLAY: CAMERA CS-2 PLAY
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LAUNCH REPLAY: CAMERA CS-6 PLAY
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LAUNCH REPLAY: FRONT CAMERA PLAY
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LAUNCH REPLAY: BEACH TRACKER PLAY
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LAUNCH REPLAY: PAD PERIMETER PLAY
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LAUNCH REPLAY: UCS-12 TRACKER PLAY
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LAUNCH REPLAY: UCS-23 TRACKER PLAY
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LAUNCH REPLAY: PLAYALINDA BEACH PLAY
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LAUNCH REPLAY: PATRICK AIR FORCE BASE PLAY
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LAUNCH REPLAY: PRESS SITE PLAY
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LAUNCH REPLAY: WEST TOWER PLAY
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LAUNCH REPLAY: CAMERA 009 PLAY
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LAUNCH REPLAY: CAMERA 050 PLAY
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LAUNCH REPLAY: CAMERA 051 PLAY
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LAUNCH REPLAY: CAMERA 054 PLAY
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LAUNCH REPLAY: CAMERA 060 PLAY
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LAUNCH REPLAY: CAMERA 061 PLAY
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LAUNCH REPLAY: CAMERA 063 PLAY
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LAUNCH REPLAY: CAMERA 070 PLAY
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Discovery launches!
Right on time, the shuttle Discovery blasted into orbit Saturday, kicking off a two-week, three-spacewalk mission to attach Japan's huge Kibo laboratory module to the international space station and deliver a fresh flight engineer - Gregory Chamitoff - to replace outgoing station astronaut Garrett Reisman.
FULL STORY - updated
NASA TV SCHEDULE REV. A (.pdf download)
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LIFTOFF OF DISCOVERY WITH KIBO LAB! PLAY
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ONBOARD CAMERA FOOTAGE OF TANK FOAM FALLING PLAY
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INSIDE MISSION CONTROL DURING LAUNCH PLAY
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POST-LAUNCH NEWS CONFERENCE PLAY
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FINAL PRE-LAUNCH POLLS GIVE "GO" FOR LIFTOFF PLAY
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ASTRONAUT GARAN CLIMBS INTO HIS SEAT PLAY
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ASTRONAUT HOSHIDE CLIMBS INTO HIS SEAT PLAY
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ASTRONAUT FOSSUM CLIMBS INTO HIS SEAT PLAY
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PILOT HAM CLIMBS INTO HIS SEAT PLAY
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ASTRONAUT CHAMITOFF CLIMBS INTO HIS SEAT PLAY
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COMMANDER KELLY CLIMBS INTO HIS SEAT PLAY
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ASTRONAUTS ARRIVE AT LAUNCH PAD 39A PLAY
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CREW DEPARTS QUARTERS FOR LAUNCH PAD PLAY
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ASTRONAUTS DON SPACESUITS FOR LAUNCH PLAY
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NARRATED RECAP OF KIBO LAB'S PRE-FLIGHT CAMPAIGN PLAY
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NARRATED RECAP OF DISCOVERY'S PRE-FLIGHT CAMPAIGN PLAY
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LAUNCH PAD GANTRY RETRACTED FRIDAY NIGHT PLAY
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TIME-LAPSE OF GANTRY ROLLBACK PLAY
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FRIDAY'S COUNTDOWN STATUS BRIEFING PLAY
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Griffin optimistic about Soyuz, toilet resolution
NASA Administrator Mike Griffin said Saturday he's confident Russian space engineers will resolve technical problems with the Soyuz spacecraft that ferry Russian crews to and from the international space station. Griffin also said he was hopeful spare parts being launched to the station aboard the shuttle Discovery will help the crew repair the Russian toilet before it becomes a real problem.
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Phoenix lander spies possible ice patch
Scientists say the camera on the Phoenix lander may have spotted a patch of ice beneath the lander. Further pictures will be taken to determine if it is ice or just rock.
MISSION STATUS CENTER - live updates!
IMAGES: POSSIBLE ICE PATCH
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Phoenix lander successfully deploys robotic arm
After being folded up on Earth a year ago, the Phoenix spacecraft's robot arm finally got to move Wednesday as flight controllers began the process of unstowing the scoop-laden appendage that will dig up samples of the frozen martian terrain for study.
MISSION STATUS CENTER - live updates!
IMAGES: AREA WHERE ARM WILL DIG
IMAGES: ROCKS GIVEN FAIRY TALE NAMES
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Strange ring circle dead star
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has found a bizarre ring of material around the magnetic remains of a star that blasted to smithereens. The stellar corpse belongs to a class of objects known as magnetars.
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New measurements reveal slimmer Milky Way -- A more accurate measuring scale has refined the weight of the Milky Way by a factor of one trillion, a discovery that has broad implications for our understanding of the Milky Way.
Solar eruption seen in unprecedented detail -- A fleet of solar-orbiting spacecraft observed the April 9 solar eruption in unprecedented detail, confirming previously unseen features that are predicted by computer models.
Dust torus detected around supergiant star -- Astronomers have taken the first close-up image of an individual dying supergiant star in our neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud.
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Station toilet parts delivered for shuttle launch
A replacement pump and other equipment needed to repair the Russian toilet aboard the international space station was installed in the shuttle Discovery early Thursday as engineers readied the ship for blastoff Saturday on a long-awaited flight to deliver Japan's huge Kibo laboratory module to the orbiting outpost.
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MISSION STATUS CENTER
NASA TV SCHEDULE (.pdf download)
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PRE-LAUNCH NEWS CONFERENCE PLAY
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India's moon probe being fitted with instrument suite
Scientists from more than a half-dozen countries are nearly finished shipping parts for six international instruments destined to fly to the moon aboard India's Chandrayaan 1 lunar orbiter later this summer.
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Mars Odyssey now prime communicator with lander
Freeing its robotic arm from launch restraints was Wednesday's main task for the Phoenix lander, a day after communications snags prevented commands from reaching the spacecraft. Officials decided that Mars Odyssey will handle the information relay duties while engineers sort out the radio trouble on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
MISSION STATUS CENTER - live updates!
IMAGES: PANORAMA SHOWS RAISED ROBOT ARM
IMAGES: ANOTHER PANORAMA OF LANDER
IMAGES: OVERHEAD PERSPECTIVE
IMAGES: NEW COLOR VIEW LOOKING NORTHWEST
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Countdown begins for Saturday's shuttle launch
The shuttle Discovery's international crew flew to the Kennedy Space Center Wednesday for the start of their countdown to blastoff Saturday on a mission to attach Japan's huge Kibo lab module to the international space station.
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ASTRONAUTS ARRIVE AT THE CAPE FOR LAUNCH PLAY
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Data link between Phoenix and MRO restored
A UHF radio aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter suffered a transient glitch Tuesday, preventing engineers from relaying the day's flight plan to the Phoenix lander. Late in the day, the radio was back in operation and a fresh set of images was relayed back to Earth.
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Communication glitch on orbiter stalls Phoenix work
A communications problem with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter delayed Tuesday's planned activities aboard the Phoenix lander, which had included the first steps to unstow the craft's robotic arm. But MRO has snapped another image of Phoenix from orbit.
MISSION STATUS CENTER - live updates!
IMAGES: MRO'S IMAGE OF PHOENIX
IMAGES: LANDER AND DESCENT HARDWARE
IMAGES: NEW VIEW OF PHOENIX ON PARACHUTE
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Phoenix sends back new images from Mars
Completing its first full day on the martian surface, NASA's Phoenix spacecraft returned more images taken around the landing site. Check the status center for updates and the latest images:
MISSION STATUS CENTER - live updates!
IMAGES: BEST VIEW SO FAR
IMAGES: PART OF LANDING SYSTEM?
IMAGES: BRIGHT OBJECT ON SURFACE
IMAGES: FIRST 3-D IMAGE FROM PHOENIX
STORE: PHOENIX MISSION PATCH
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Satellite orbiting Mars imaged descending Phoenix
Still basking in the elation of a successful Mars landing, engineers with the Phoenix program unveiled a dramatic photo Monday showing the spacecraft descending to the martian surface under its parachute Sunday. The black-and-white photo, shot by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft as it sailed overhead, shows the inflated parachute and the backshell supporting Phoenix dangling below.
FULL STORY
ORBITER IMAGES: PHOENIX DESCENDING
ORBITER IMAGES: BRIGHTER VIEW OF DESCENT
LANDER IMAGES: MARTIAN ARCTIC PLAINS
LANDER IMAGES: FOOTPAD IN SOIL
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Weather satellite launched to support the Olympics
China launched a polar-orbiting weather satellite early Tuesday, giving forecasters another tool to make detailed weather predictions for the Beijing Olympics later this year, state media reported.
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NASA managers thrilled with successful landing
The Phoenix lander that touched down on Mars Sunday appears healthy and should be ready to begin digging for ice within a week or so, NASA officials said early Monday, after engineers complete initial checkout and collect more photos to help characterize the landing site.
FULL STORY
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First images beamed back to Earth from lander
About two hours after touching down, NASA's Phoenix lander returned the first images of the martian surface near the north pole and engineering views of itself.
COLOR IMAGES: THE ARCTIC PLAINS
COLOR IMAGES: CLOSEUP OF SURFACE
FIRST IMAGES: THE SURFACE
FIRST IMAGES: THE LANDSCAPE
FIRST IMAGES: MORE OF THE AREA
FIRST IMAGES: BLIP ON THE HORIZON
FIRST IMAGES: MORE OF THE GROUND
FIRST IMAGES: ONE OF LANDER'S LEGS
FIRST IMAGES: DEPLOYED SOLAR ARRAY
FIRST IMAGES: ANOTHER LANDSCAPE SCENE
FIRST IMAGES: ANOTHER VIEW TO HORIZON
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NASA's Phoenix lands on arctic plains of Mars
NASA's Phoenix lander plunged into the martian atmosphere Sunday at 12,700 mph and then used atmospheric friction, a large parachute and finally, 12 individually controlled rocket engines to complete an automated landing near the red planet's northern polar cap.
FULL STORY - updated
SUNDAY AFTERNOON STORY
LANDING PREVIEW STORY
LANDING TIMELINE
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POST-LANDING INTERVIEW WITH PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR PLAY
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SUNDAY'S PRE-LANDING STATUS PRESENTATION | Q&A
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ENTRY, DESCENT AND LANDING EXPLAINED PLAY
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ANIMATION OF PHOENIX MISSION WITH NARRATION PLAY
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HIGHLIGHTS FROM MARS ROVER SPIRIT'S LANDING PLAY
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Phoenix spacecraft healthy, on track for Mars landing
NASA's Phoenix lander closed in on Mars Saturday, healthy and on course for touchdown Sunday evening near the red planet's northern polar cap. Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., decided to forego a course-correction rocket firing late Saturday but left open the option for a final trajectory tweak Sunday eight hours before atmospheric entry.
FULL STORY
MISSION SCIENCE GOALS
PHOENIX LAUNCH ARCHIVE
MARS ROVER ARCHIVE
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Russia launches relay craft, commemorative satellite
Russia launched a Rockot booster from the country's northern spaceport Friday, according to news reports. The vehicle was carrying three Gonets communications satellites and a small spacecraft to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Sputnik.
FULL STORY
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Yellowstone-like hot spring deposits found on Mars
Deposits of nearly pure silica discovered by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit in Gusev Crater formed when volcanic steam or hot water (or maybe both) percolated through the ground. Such deposits are found around hydrothermal vents like those in Yellowstone National Park.
FULL STORY
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Scientists witness a
once-in-a-lifetime event
When she peered into the screen of her computer one day in January, Alicia Soderberg was supposed to see a small, dull glowing smudge in one corner, the evidence of a month-old supernova that would help her better understand the mystery of these huge exploding stars.
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Mighty winds blow in Jupiter's Little Red Spot
Using data from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft and two telescopes at Earth, an international team of scientists has found that one of the solar system's largest and newest storms - Jupiter's Little Red Spot - has some of the highest wind speeds ever detected on any planet.
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Powerhouse spacecraft launched for North America
A Zenit rocket blasted off and disappeared into a moonlit sky early today, launching a successful one-hour mission to deploy a 10,200-pound cable television broadcasting satellite to cover North America.
FULL STORY
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Hubble Space Telescope finds missing matter
Although the universe contains billions of galaxies, only a small amount of its matter is
locked up in these behemoths. Most of the universe's matter that was created during and just after the Big Bang must be found elsewhere.
FULL STORY
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A pipsqueak star unleashes monster flare
NASA's Swift satellite recently picked up the brightest flare ever seen from a normal star other than our Sun. The flare, an explosive release of energy from a star, packed the power of thousands of solar flares. It would have been visible to the naked eye if the star had been easily observable in the night sky at the time.
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Newly upgraded telescope searches for orphan stars -- Using new instrumentation, Case Western Reserve University astronomers can now view the night sky wider and deeper than before.
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Discovery passes final review for May 31 launch
NASA managers Monday cleared the shuttle Discovery for launch May 31 on a three-spacewalk mission to deliver and attach Japan's huge Kibo laboratory module to the international space station. The decision to proceed came after a lengthy discussion on the health of the station's Soyuz lifeboat after back-to-back re-entry problems that led to rough, off-course landings.
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STS-124 MISSION INDEX
STORE: OFFICIAL MISSION PATCH
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INTERVIEW WITH MS1 KAREN NYBERG PLAY
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INTERVIEW WITH MS2 RON GARAN PLAY
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Key molecule discovered in Venusian atmosphere
Venus Express has made the first detection of the molecule hydroxyl in the upper atmosphere of Venus, giving scientists a vital tool to unlock the mechanics of our sister planet's dense atmosphere.
FULL STORY
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Rare quartet of stars aids stellar evolution models
Astronomers have discovered an extremely rare quartet of stars, disguised as a single speck of light even through some of the world's most powerful telescopes, orbiting each other within a region smaller than Jupiter's orbit round the Sun.
FULL STORY
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First Ares test launch likely delayed by pad conflict
Delays in the space shuttle program could force a one-month slip of an early test flight of NASA's next-generation rocket next year due to busy Kennedy Space Center launch facilities, agency officials said.
FULL STORY
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Space station receives Russian resupply ship
A cargo and fuel freighter running on autopilot control successfully docked to the space station Friday afternoon, completing a two-day flight up to the orbiting complex.
FULL STORY
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NASA satellite finds interior of Mars is colder
New observations from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter indicate that the crust and upper mantle of Mars are stiffer and colder than previously thought.
FULL STORY
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OTHER HEADLINES Additional stories today
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Building 'super roadmaps' of planets and moons -- 3D "super roadmaps" of other planets and moons could provide robots, astronauts and engineers details about atmospheric composition, biohazards, wind speed and temperature. Information like this could help land future spacecraft and more effectively navigate roving cameras across a Martian or lunar terrain.
Astronomers find that universe shines twice as bright -- Astronomers from UK Universities working with colleagues from Germany and Australia have calculated that the universe is actually twice as bright as previously thought, reporting that dust is obscuring approximately half of the light that the universe is currently generating.
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Discovery of most recent supernova in our galaxy
The most recent supernova in our galaxy has been discovered by tracking the rapid expansion of its remains. This result, using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Large Array, will help improve our understanding of how often supernovae explode in the Milky Way galaxy.
FULL STORY
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Cargo ship begins flight to the space station
A Russian freighter packed with fresh supplies for the international space station successfully rocketed away from Earth on Wednesday and immediately began plotting a two-day trek to the orbiting outpost.
FULL STORY
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NASA study links Earth impacts to human-caused climate change -- A new NASA-led study shows human-caused climate change has made an impact on a wide range of Earth's natural systems, including permafrost thawing, plants blooming earlier across Europe, and lakes declining in productivity in Africa.
Scientists test lunar breathing system -- Imagine yourself hip-to-hip, shoulder-to-shoulder, inside a room the size of a walk-in closet for eight hours with five people you just met. Does that make you sweat? Or maybe make your breathing a little more animated?
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Taking the temperature of the cosmic background
Using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, astronomers have made the first detection of a carbon monoxide molecule in a galaxy almost 11 billion light years away, a feat that has resulted in the most precise measurement of the cosmic temperature at such a remote epoch.
FULL STORY
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Intense testing paved Phoenix road to Mars
When NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander descends to the surface of the Red Planet on May 25, few will be watching as closely as the men and women who have spent years planning, analyzing and conducting tests to prepare for the dramatic and nerve-wracking event known as EDL -- Entry, Descent and Landing. Less than 50 percent of all previous lander missions have made it safely to the surface.
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Part of missing matter in the universe discovered
Europe's orbiting X-ray observatory XMM-Newton has been used by a team of international astronomers to uncover part of the missing matter in the universe.
FULL STORY
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New water reclamation system headed for duty on station -- International Space Station crews soon will have a new water reclamation system that will recycle wastewater, allowing up to six crew members to live aboard the orbiting laboratory.
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Hubble sees the Antennae Galaxies moving closer
New research on the Antennae Galaxies using the Advanced Camera for Surveys onboard the Hubble Space Telescope shows that this benchmark pair of interacting galaxies is in fact much closer than previously thought - 45 million light-years instead of 65 million light-years.
FULL STORY
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OTHER HEADLINES Additional stories today
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Send your name to the moon with new lunar mission -- NASA invites people of all ages to join the lunar exploration journey with an opportunity to send their names to the moon aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Kepler planet mission to send names into space -- How cool would it be to have your name on board the spacecraft that discovers the first known Earth-like planet beyond our solar system? Well, here's your chance.
NASA awards contract for Ares mobile launcher -- NASA's Kennedy Space Center has awarded a contract to Hensel Phelps for the construction of the Ares I mobile launcher for the Constellation Program.
Test for commercial space habitat reaches milestone -- Genesis I, the first test module launched by commercial space habitat developer Bigelow Aerospace, has completed its 10,000th orbit around the Earth. The unmanned module is about to start its third year in space since it ushered in a new era of private space development following its July 12, 2006 launch.
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Astronauts board Discovery for countdown rehearsal
The crew of the shuttle Discovery strapped in Friday for a dress-rehearsal countdown that sets the stage for launch May 31 on a long-awaited flight to deliver Japan's huge Kibo laboratory module to the space station.
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NASA calls on APL to send a probe to the sun
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory is sending a spacecraft closer to the sun than any probe has ever gone - and what it finds could revolutionize what we know about our star and the solar wind that influences everything in our solar system.
FULL STORY
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Iron 'snow' helps maintain Mercury's magnetic field
New scientific evidence suggests that deep inside the planet Mercury, iron "snow" forms and falls toward the center of the planet, much like snowflakes form in Earth's atmosphere and fall to the ground.
FULL STORY
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Saturn does the wave in upper atmosphere
Two decades of scrutinizing Saturn are finally paying off, as scientists have discovered a wave pattern, or oscillation, in Saturn's atmosphere only visible from Earth every 15 years.
FULL STORY
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Discovery crew at the Cape for practice countdown
Shuttle Discovery's astronauts flew into Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday afternoon for this week's countdown dress rehearsal and emergency training drills at launch pad 39A.
FULL STORY
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Old globular clusters surprisingly young
New results from NASA's Chandra X-ray observatory suggest that globular clusters, the dense bunches of stars found in all galaxies, may be less evolved than previously thought.
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Astronomers discover a new breed of star
Using the Otto Struve Telescope at McDonald Observatory, astronomers at the University of Texas have predicted and confirmed the existence of a new type of variable star: a pulsating carbon white dwarf.
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Stellar time bomb makes scheduled explosion
An international team of astronomers using observations from NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer has discovered a timing mechanism that allows them to predict exactly when a neutron star will unleash its wrath.
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Check out some panoramas created Saturday morning after Discovery arrived atop Kennedy Space Center's pad 39A.
PANORAMA GALLERY
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Space shuttle Discovery rolls out to the launch pad
With four weeks until its planned launch to haul the Japanese science laboratory module up to the space station, shuttle Discovery traveled overnight from the Vehicle Assembly Building to pad 39A.
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IMAGES: DISCOVERY ON THE PAD
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PAD'S ORBITER ACCESS ARM SWUNG INTO POSITION PLAY
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SHUTTLE DISCOVERY ROLLED TO PAD 39A PLAY
VIDEO:
SHUTTLE AND STATION PROGRAM BRIEFING PLAY
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STS-124 MISSION OVERVIEW PART 1 | PART 2
VIDEO:
PREVIEW BRIEFING ON MISSION'S SPACEWALKS PLAY
VIDEO:
THE ASTRONAUTS' PRE-FLIGHT NEWS BRIEFING PLAY
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Astronaut Hall of Fame:
Class of 2008
Four former space shuttle commanders -- John Blaha, Bob Cabana, Bryan O'Connor and Loren Shriver -- were inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame on Saturday. It was the seventh group of shuttle crewmembers named to the hall, which has enshrined 70 astronauts.
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Whitson describes rough Soyuz entry and landing
Plunging back into the atmosphere April 19 after a six-month stay aboard the international space station, Expedition 16 commander Peggy Whitson and Soyuz commander Yuri Malenchenko realized something was very wrong. One of the two modules attached to the crew cabin had failed to separate prior to entry and the spacecraft, moving at some 5 miles per second, slammed into the discernible atmosphere in the wrong orientation.
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Shuttle boss discusses delay to downstream flights
The shuttle Discovery is on track for launch May 31 on a high-priority flight to deliver Japan's huge Kibo lab module to the international space station. But subsequent flights are slipping four to five weeks each because of external tank production issues, and a flight that had been targeted for late this year will slip into early 2009, a senior NASA manager said Thursday.
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KIBO LABORATORY TRAVELS TO THE LAUNCH PAD PLAY
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TRANSPORT CANISTER WITH KIBO ROTATED UPRIGHT PLAY
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Europe's cargo ship could stay at station a little longer
A team of earthbound engineers and space fliers is methodically completing a checklist of cargo transfers and tests on the Jules Verne space station resupply ship, while European officials await word on whether the craft's stay at the complex could be extended by a month or more.
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Black hole thrown out of its parent galaxy
By an enormous burst of gravitational waves that accompanies the merger of two black holes, a newly formed black hole has been booted out of its parent galaxy at thousands of kilometers per second, confirming theories that extreme ejection events like this can occur and aren't only plausible in supercomputer simulations.
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NASA spacecraft tracks raging Saturn storm
As a powerful electrical storm rages on Saturn with lightning bolts 10,000 times more powerful than those found on Earth, the Cassini spacecraft continues its five-month watch over the dramatic events.
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Compact galaxies in early universe pack a big punch
Imagine receiving an announcement touting the birth of a baby 20 inches long and weighing 180 pounds. Astronomers looking at galaxies in the universe's distant past received a similar perplexing announcement when they found nine young, compact galaxies, each weighing in at 200 billion times the mass of the Sun.
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OTHER HEADLINES Additional stories today
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Galaxy Evolution Explorer celebrates 5 years in space -- Since its launch five years ago, the Galaxy Evolution Explorer has photographed hundreds of millions of galaxies in ultraviolet light. M106 is one of those galaxies, and from 22 light years away, it strikes a pose in blue and gold for this new commemorative portrait.
World's largest commercial satellite achieves key milestone -- The ICO G1 satellite's large 12-meter antenna reflector was successfully deployed over the weekend. The reflector size enables the increased performance typically required for mobile interactive media services.
GIOVE-B spacecraft in good health following launch -- Europe's GIOVE-B satellite will shortly start its commissioning phase. An initial underperformance of the spacecraft's reaction wheels was traced to a mismatch in software.
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Old Titan launch pad gantry at Cape knocked down
The landscape of Cape Canaveral is changing, a fact illustrated Sunday when a Titan-era gantry was blasted to the ground to clear the historic Air Force launch pad for new commercial rockets.
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IMAGES: COMPLEX 40 TOWER TOPPLING
ARCHIVE: TITAN COVERAGE
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Commercial Land Launch mission lofts Israeli satellite
A Zenit rocket inaugurated a Sea Launch spinoff program to offer land-based launch services to medium-class satellite payloads Monday morning, successfully streaking into space through a cloudless blue sky above the plains of Kazakhstan.
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Indian PSLV booster hauls a load of satellites into orbit
An Indian rocket took a 14-minute trip into orbit early Monday, releasing nine satellites from six countries on missions to observe Earth, demonstrate low-cost space technologies and educate students around the world.
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Test craft for Europe's navigation system blasts off
Europe's Galileo space-based navigation system took another step toward fruition with the launch of a second prototype satellite Saturday night, less than a week after the European Parliament approved plans to finance the network with public funds.
FULL STORY - updated
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Shuttle moves to assembly building for May 31 launch
Shuttle Discovery was transferred from its hangar to the Vehicle Assembly Building on Saturday morning where the spacecraft will be hooked up to its external fuel tank and twin solid rocket boosters in preparation for rollout to the launch pad.
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DISCOVERY HOISTED FOR ATTACHMENT TO FUEL TANK PLAY
VIDEO:
THE SHUTTLE MOVES TO THE VEHICLE ASSEMBLY BUILDING PLAY
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OTHER HEADLINES Additional stories today
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Chinese data relay spacecraft put into orbit -- China launched a data relay satellite Friday to serve as a communications link between ground controllers and the country's next human space mission later this year.
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Plan to identify watery Earth-like planets develops
Astronomers are looking to identify Earth-like watery worlds circling distant stars from a glint of light seen through an optical space telescope and a mathematical method developed by researchers at Penn State and the University of Hawaii.
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Unlocking the secrets of a massive black hole
The mechanism by which black holes expel powerful jets of particles at nearly the speed of light has long been speculated, but thanks to new observations of a blazar in action, these theories can now be substantiated.
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Shoulder motor balks on Opportunity rover's arm
A small motor in the robotic arm of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity that began stalling occasionally more than two years ago has become more troublesome recently.
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Plethora of wild galaxies on Hubble's birthday
Today, in celebration of the Hubble Space Telescope's 18th launch anniversary, 59 views of colliding galaxies constitute the largest collection of Hubble images ever released to the public. This new Hubble atlas dramatically illustrates how galaxy collisions produce a remarkable variety of intricate structures in never-before-seen detail.
FULL STORY
VIDEO: HUBBLE LAUNCH COVERAGE
VIDEO: CREW MOVIE
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Lunar mapper will lead NASA's return to the moon
A robotic precursor of resuming human expeditions to the moon will likely be postponed by at least a few weeks from its October launch target, but NASA does not foresee any problems launching the lunar orbiter and high-speed impactor before the end of this year.
FULL STORY
LAUNCH WINDOW CHART
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Crashing into the moon in search of frozen water
Relying on heritage technology derived from parts on previous space missions, a spacecraft on a budget will guide a spent rocket stage on a collision course with the moon early next year to search for signs of permanently frozen water hidden inside craters near the lunar poles.
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Possible Soyuz separation problem under scrutiny
The Russian Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft that carried two space station crew members and a South Korean guest cosmonaut back to Earth Saturday may have started its fiery re-entry with a normally discarded propulsion module still attached officials said Tuesday, putting the craft in an unusual orientation and subjecting the returning space fliers to higher than normal stresses and buffeting.
FULL STORY - updated with Whitson quotes
VIDEO: EXPEDITION 16 COVERAGE
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Mars radar sounding opens up planet's third dimension
The European Space Agency's Mars Express radar sounder, MARSIS, has looked beneath the martian surface and opened up the third dimension for planetary exploration. The technique's success is prompting scientists to think of all the other places in the Solar System where they would like to use radar sounders.
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Cause of last month's Proton failure determined
The Russian State Commission investigating the AMC-14 failure of a Proton Breeze M launch has traced the cause to the rupture of the gas duct between the gas generator and the propellant pump turbine in the Breeze M main engine.
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Station crew OK after Soyuz lands short of target
The Soyuz capsule ferrying space station commander Peggy Whitson, Yuri Malenchenko and South Korean guest cosmonaut So-Yeon Yi back to Earth Saturday made a steeper-than-planned descent, landing nearly 300 miles from the targeted site in Kazakhstan.
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First satellite for Vietnam, another for Brazil launched
Continuing what is supposed to be a banner year with an unprecedented flight rate, the commercial Ariane 5 rocket launched again Friday night, lofting a Brazilian broadcast satellite and Vietnam's first communications spacecraft.
FULL STORY
OUR ARIANE ARCHIVE
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Solar flares set the Sun quaking, satellite shows
Data from the ESA/NASA spacecraft SOHO shows clearly that powerful starquakes ripple around the Sun in the wake of mighty solar flares that explode above its surface. The observations give solar physicists new insight into a long-running solar mystery and may even provide a way of studying other stars.
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Additional launch photos from Atlas 5 flight
More spectacular images have been posted showing the Atlas 5 rocket blasting off Monday afternoon carrying the commercial ICO G1 mobile communications satellite.
IMAGES: MORE LAUNCH PHOTOS
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Stellar birth observed in the galactic wilderness
A new image from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer shows baby stars sprouting in the backwoods of a galaxy -- a relatively desolate region of space more than 100,000 light-years from the galaxy's bustling center.
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Satellite launched to predict communication outages
An experimental Air Force satellite designed to monitor the Earth's ionosphere and foresee impending communication disruptions was successfully deployed into space Wednesday by an Orbital Sciences air-launched Pegasus rocket.
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Controllers working to keep Ulysses sun orbiter alive
Scientists continue to extract bits of data trickling to Earth from the Ulysses solar probe as ground controllers employ new strategies to extend the life of the 17-year-old spacecraft, including a "long shot" plan to put the observatory in hibernation until the sun's activity reaches its
next peak in 2013.
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The drifting star
By examining the "ringing" of a planet-harboring star, a team of astronomers has shown that it has drifted away from its original birthplace, providing important information about the dynamics of our Milky Way and theories of star and planet formation.
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The coolest brown dwarf
An international team of astronomers has discovered the coldest brown dwarf ever observed, bringing scientists one step closer to bridging the gap between stars and planets.
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Atlas 5 rocket puts up mobile services satellite
Thundering out of Cape Canaveral on its first commercial flight in two years and carrying its heaviest payload ever, an Atlas 5 rocket on Monday afternoon successfully launched a mobile communications satellite to assist and entertain Americans on the go.
FULL STORY
MISSION STATUS CENTER - live updates!
LAUNCH EVENTS TIMELINE
GROUND TRACK MAP
IMAGES: LAUNCH AS SEEN FROM PAD CAMERAS
IMAGES: LAUNCH AS SEEN FROM PRESS SITE
IMAGES: SUNDAY'S ROLLOUT TO LAUNCH PAD
IMAGES: ROCKET ASSEMBLY PHOTOS
IMAGES: ICO G1 SATELLITE
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SPECTATORS AT PRESS SITE VIEW THE LAUNCH PLAY
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WIDE VIEW OF LAUNCH PLAY
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Milky Way's giant black hole awoke 300 years ago
A team of Japanese astronomers using NASA, ESA and Japanese X-ray satellites has discovered that our galaxy's central black hole let loose a powerful flare three centuries ago.
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NASA extends Cassini's grand tour of Saturn
NASA is extending the international Cassini-Huygens mission by two years. The historic spacecraft's stunning discoveries and images have revolutionized our knowledge of Saturn and its moons.
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No hope of saving wayward DISH Network satellite
The owners of a television broadcasting satellite stranded in a lower-than-planned orbit during last month's failed Proton rocket launch announced Friday they have declared the craft a total loss.
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Mars-bound spacecraft fine turns course for landing
NASA engineers have adjusted the flight path of the Phoenix Mars Lander, setting the spacecraft on course for its May 25 landing on the Red Planet. It was the first trajectory maneuver targeting a specific location in the northern polar region for the touchdown.
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Hubble pinpoints record-breaking explosion
Peering across 7.5 billion light-years and halfway back to the Big Bang, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has photographed the fading optical counterpart of a powerful gamma ray burst that holds the record for being the intrinsically brightest naked-eye object ever seen from Earth. For nearly a minute this single star was as bright as 10 million galaxies.
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Delta 4-Heavy rocket on the pad for late July blastoff
Preparations for the next launch of America's largest unmanned rocket are underway at Cape Canaveral's Complex 37 following the recent rollout of the Delta 4-Heavy vehicle from its assembly hangar.
FULL STORY
PANORAMAS: INSIDE THE DELTA HANGAR
IMAGES: ROCKET READIED TO MOVE
IMAGES: ROLLOUT TO LAUNCH PAD
IMAGES: ROCKET RAISED UPRIGHT
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New crew arrives at station after smooth docking
Commander Sergei Volkov, son of a famed Russian cosmonaut, deftly guided the Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft to a successful docking with the international space station Thursday to complete a two-day chase that started with blastoff Tuesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
FULL STORY
MISSION STATUS CENTER
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Spacecraft images Mars moon in color and in 3D
A new stereo view of Phobos, the larger and inner of Mars' two tiny moons, has been captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft.
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NASA sets sights on lunar dust exploration mission
NASA is preparing to send a small spacecraft to the moon in 2011 to assess the lunar atmosphere and the nature of dust lofted above the surface.
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New laser technology could find first Earth-like planets
The leading method of finding planets orbiting distant stars spots mostly Jupiter-sized worlds. Technology limitations make it difficult to detect smaller planets. But that is about to change.
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Station's next resident crew launches into orbit
Two rookie Russian cosmonauts and South Korea's first astronaut rocketed into space Tuesday, riding aboard a Soyuz capsule in pursuit of the international space station. Liftoff from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan occurred on schedule at 7:16 a.m. EDT (1116 GMT).
FULL STORY
MISSION STATUS CENTER
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LAUNCH OF EXPEDITION 17 ABOARD THE SOYUZ ROCKET PLAY
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HIGHLIGHTS OF CREW'S LAUNCH DAY PREPS PLAY
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VIEW OF PROGRESS 28P'S REENTRY ON MONDAY PLAY
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PROGRESS 28P SUPPLY SHIP UNDOCKS FROM STATION PLAY
VIDEO:
GANTRY TOWERS ENCLOSE SOYUZ ROCKET AT THE PAD PLAY
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SOYUZ ROCKET ROLLED OUT TO BAIKONUR LAUNCH PAD PLAY
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ASSEMBLY OF THE SOYUZ LAUNCH VEHICLE COMPLETED PLAY
VIDEO:
CREW'S ACTIVITIES AT BAIKONUR PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3
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EXPEDITION 17 MISSION PREVIEW BRIEFING PLAY
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Laplace & Tandem vie for Cosmic Visions top-spot
Two missions to the outer Solar System, Laplace (Europa and Jupiter Mission) and Tandem (Titan and Enceladus Mission), are competing against each other for selection later this year; Emily Baldwin summarises the key goals of each ambitious mission.
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Craft reboots the search for active volcanoes on Venus
ESA's Venus Express has measured a highly variable quantity of the volcanic gas sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere of Venus. Scientists must now decide whether this is evidence for active volcanoes on Venus, or linked to a hitherto unknown mechanism affecting the upper atmosphere.
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Hubble sees exploding star
The latest image from the Hubble Space Telescope reveals a sharp view of the spiral galaxy NGC 2397. This image also shows a rare Hubble view of the late stages of a supernova - SN 2006bc, discovered in March 2006.
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'Focused' solar flares get millions of degrees hotter
A NASA-funded researcher has discovered that solar flares -- explosions in the atmosphere of the sun -- get much hotter when they stay "focused" and devote all their energy to heating, allowing them to become millions of degrees hotter.
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Black hole found in enigmatic Omega Centauri
Omega Centauri has been known as an unusual globular cluster for a long time. A new result obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope and the Gemini Observatory reveals that the explanation behind Omega Centauri's peculiarities may be a black hole hidden in its center. One implication of the discovery is that it is very likely that Omega Centauri is not a globular cluster at all.
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New cargo freighter safely docks to space station
Europe's Jules Verne spaceship glided into port at the international space station Thursday, delivering more than 10,000 pounds of supplies to the complex and completing nearly a month of testing to prove the craft's revolutionary navigation system worked.
FULL STORY - updated
PREVIEW STORY
DOCKING TIMELINE
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NARRATED PREVIEW OF THE RENDEZVOUS AND DOCKING PLAY
VIDEO:
RENDEZVOUS BRINGS SHIP TO POINT 820 FEET AWAY PLAY
VIDEO:
JULES VERNE APPROACHES TO 62 FEET FROM STATION PLAY
VIDEO:
FREIGHTER FLIES TO FINAL HOLD POINT AT 36 FEET PLAY
VIDEO:
SPACECRAFT SUCCESSFULLY DOCKS TO SPACE STATION PLAY
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POST-DOCKING NEWS CONFERENCE FROM HOUSTON PLAY
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VIDEO COVERAGE OF JULES VERNE
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Next GPS satellite arrives at Florida spaceport for launch
The penultimate satellite in the current generation of Global Positioning System spacecraft was airborne Thursday morning, jetting from its Lockheed Martin factory in Pennsylvania to the Florida launch site.
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Meteor showers observed in the Martian atmosphere
A storm of shooting stars has, for the first time, been detected in the Martian atmosphere by a team of scientists based at the Armagh Observatory using data from the Mars Global Surveyor probe.
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Spinning stars make astronomers dizzy
Fast spinning, massive stars have shown that the way in which gases are mixed inside them isn't as simple as had been assumed, according to a new study involving the Very Large Telescope at the European Southern Observatory in Chile, and presented at the RAS National Astronomy Meeting.
FULL STORY
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Embryonic planet imaged around young star
The youngest planet ever to be seen has been captured in its earliest stage of formation in a disc of gas and rocky debris around a star 520 light years away.
FULL STORY
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10 new planets discovered outside our solar system
An international team of astronomers has found 10 new "extra solar" planets, planets that orbit stars other than our sun. The team used a system of robotic cameras that yield a great deal of information about these other worlds, some of which are quite exotic.
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NASA scientists identify smallest known black hole
Using a new technique, two NASA scientists have identified the lightest known black hole. With a mass only about 3.8 times greater than our Sun and a diameter of only about 15 miles, the black hole lies very close to the minimum size predicted for black holes that originate from dying stars.
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Two new star systems are first of their kind ever found
Astronomers have spied a faraway star system that is so unusual, it was one of a kind -- until its discovery helped them pinpoint a second one that was much closer to home.
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Read our earlier news archive page.
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