Sunday: May 6, 2001  0611 GMT
Space vacation ends for Tito with Soyuz ride home
Dennis Tito's historic eight-day adventure to the final frontier ended safely today when the Soyuz capsule carrying the 60-year old American businessman and two Russian cosmonauts touched down in Central Asia
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Soyuz
MAP spacecraft in Florida for launch preparations
NASA's Microwave Anisotropy Probe is undergoing final readiness preparations at Kennedy Space Center for its upcoming launch this summer aboard a Boeing Delta 2 rocket. The craft is designed to make a full sky picture of cosmic microwave background radiation, the afterglow of the Big Bang.
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MAP
Stellar disk 25,000 light years away 'resolved'
Like our Sun, stars are large gaseous spheres. However, while we are able to perceive the Sun's disk, all other stars are so far away that they normally appear as points of light. Only specialized observing techniques are able to "resolve" the images of nearby stars and to show them as extended balls of fire.
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ESO
Saturday: May 5, 2001  0234 GMT
Genetically modified Earth plants will glow from Mars
In what reads like a story from a 1950s science fiction magazine, a team of University of Florida scientists has genetically modified a tiny plant to send reports back from Mars in a most unworldly way: by emitting an eerie, fluorescent glow.
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Mars
Soyuz to depart station tonight with Tito
Dennis Tito's space joyride is drawing to a close. The first fare-paying tourist of the final frontier and two Russian cosmonauts are slated to depart the international space station Saturday night for their journey back to Earth aboard a Soyuz capsule.
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Soyuz
Friday: May 4, 2001  0220 GMT
Commercial experiments underway aboard station
Three new commercial experiments are getting started on the international space station, marking a major milestone for NASA's Commercial Space Centers -- 17 centers across the United States that help industry conduct space experiments.
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ISS
NASA issues Endeavour damage report
Inspections have revealed space shuttle Endeavour suffered the expected number of debris hits during its just-completed voyage into orbit, NASA said Thursday. The shuttle is undergoing work to prepare for next week's cross-country trek from Edwards Air Force Base in California back to Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
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STS-100 crew
Thursday: May 3, 2001  0303 GMT
Odds of planet formation in Orion Nebula reduced
In 1993, when the Hubble Space Telescope surveyed the Orion nebula for the first time, its images provided a substantial boost for the argument that stars with planetary systems are commonplace in the galaxy. Now, however, the most recent analyses of one the youngest, closest and brightest nebulae suggest that planets may be far rarer than thought.
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Hubble
Future aircraft might morph its features in flight
A future aircraft might morph its wings, use smart sensors and actuators and more accurately mimic nature's methods of flight. NASA Administrator Dan Goldin described the aircraft as one of the linchpins of the Agency's aerospace research for the next 20 years.
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Morph
Colliding galaxies provide clues to star formation
By comparing computer simulations of a galaxy collision with actual observations, astronomers at the University of Illinois have found discrete star-formation episodes that may help explain the prodigious star-formation rates that occurred in the early universe.
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Colliding
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New JPL director announces lab reorganization -- A reorganization designed to position the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for a new generation of challenges in space exploration has been announced by incoming Director Dr. Charles Elachi.
Wednesday: May 2, 2001  0222 GMT
Endeavour back on Earth
Diverted by bad weather in Florida, the Endeavour astronauts glided to a smooth California landing Tuesday, leaving the repaired international space station behind in orbit and setting the stage for a milestone mission in June to complete the lab's initial assembly.
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Endeavour approaches

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Tito's reflections from space
Space tourist Dennis Tito, into the second day of his stay on space station Alpha, was interviewed early Tuesday by Moscow-based reporters. Read his comments about his vacation so far.
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Tito
Black holes may take space for a spin
As if black holes weren't menacing enough, astronomers now have observational evidence that at least some of them spin about like whirlpools, wrapping up the fabric of space with them.
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Black hole
Big Bang evidence found
Several teams of astronomers released new data this week from a suite of groundbased and balloon-borne instruments that they believe is the strongest evidence yet for the leading model for the formation of the universe.
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Map
Tuesday: May 1, 2001  1200 GMT
NASA diverts Endeavour landing to Mojave Desert
Space shuttle Endeavour is California bound. Faced with a dismal weather picture at Kennedy Space Center all week, NASA officials have decided to send Endeavour to the backup landing site at Edwards Air Force Base in California today. Touchdown is slated for 12:11 p.m. EDT.
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Endeavour
Space tourist Tito checks in at the "Hotel Alpha"
The Soyuz TM-32 spacecraft carrying U.S. millionaire space tourist Dennis Tito and two cosmonaut crewmates successfully docked with the international space station at 3:58 a.m. EDT Monday as the two vehicles sailed 240 miles above central Asia. They boarded the outpost at about 5:28 a.m. EDT.
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Soyuz docked
Dress rehearsal successful for flight of X-43A scramjet
The NASA X-43A hypersonic research vehicle and its Pegasus booster rocket, mounted beneath the wing of their B-52 mother ship, had a successful first captive-carry flight over the weekend.
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X-43A
DAILY BRIEFING  Other stories making news today
Students to present results of Jupiter studies to JPL -- A few of the 2,300 students from 13 states who have used a huge remote-control radio telescope to measure energy from Jupiter's radiation belts during the past six months will present their results May 4 to scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Monday: April 30, 2001  0323 GMT
Endeavour departs station, Tito to arrive Monday
The space shuttle Endeavour undocked from the partially repaired international space station Sunday, clearing the way for millionaire space tourist Dennis Tito to check in Monday for a $2.5 million-per-day visit.
   FULL STORY - posted 4:50 p.m. EDT
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ISS

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Unlikely failures triggered computer shutdowns
After five days of extensive trouble shooting, engineers now believe the culprit responsible for crippling the international space station's computer system was the unlikely, near-simultaneous failures of two critical hard drives.
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ISS
Pioneer 10 probe lives on
In a possibly last-ditch attempt to try to contact Pioneer 10, ground controllers successfully received the deep-space probe's faint radio signal Saturday, washing away fears that the craft had been forever lost.
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Pioneer 10
Solar flare blamed for glitch on Mars Odyssey
NASA's Mars-bound Odyssey spacecraft suffered a reset of one onboard computer last week, possibly due to a solar flare. Flight controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory say the probe is doing fine, however.
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Odyssey
DAILY BRIEFING  Other stories making news today
Final preparation tests for Europe's Artemis satellite -- ESA's Artemis spacecraft has just completed a rigorous schedule of final inspections and testing at the European launch site in Kourou, French Guiana. The spacecraft and its sensitive instruments have been protected from the unfriendly tropical conditions in a special, environmentally-sealed testing chamber.

Earlier news
April 23-29: Tito's tourist trip blasts off; Serious computer problem strikes space station; Robot arm attached to station by shuttle crew; Hubble makes popular observation for its birthday; Mars Odyssey takes snapshot of Earth.

April 16-22: Endeavour launches with Canadarm2 for station; New Indian rocket makes inaugural flight; Climate change linked to anomaly in Earth's orbit; What medieval witnesses saw was not lunar impact.

April 9-15: A virtual Columbia on its 20th anniversary; NASA's proposed '02 budget; Accident delays solar sail launch; Odyssey's launch put spacecraft on good course; Sun takes another solar shot.

More news  See our weekly archive of space news.


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