Sunday: June 16, 2002   0502 GMT Sea Launch resumes flights after year-long lull Sea Launch's Zenit 3SL rocket roared off its ocean-going launch platform for the first time in over a year Saturday, carrying the ultra-powerful Galaxy 3C communications satellite into its planned Earth orbit.    FULL STORY    MISSION STATUS CENTER Video coverage for subscribers only:    VIDEO: SEA LAUNCH BLASTS OFF WITH GALAXY 3C QT or RV Endeavour heads for home; NASA pleased with success The shuttle Endeavour undocked from the international space station Saturday as the two spacecraft sailed 240 miles above central Asia just west of the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakstan.    FULL STORY    MISSION STATUS CENTER    UNDOCKING TIMELINE    UPDATED MASTER FLIGHT PLAN    NASA TV SCHEDULE More mission coverage here:       Video coverage for subscribers only:    VIDEO: HATCHWAY CLOSED BETWEEN SPACECRAFT QT or RV    VIDEO: ENDEAVOUR UNDOCKS FROM STATION QT or RV    VIDEO: VIEWS OF STATION DURING FLYAROUND QT or RV    VIDEO: ANIMATION OF ENDEAVOUR'S UNDOCKING QT or RV    VIDEO: SATURDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING QT or RV Saturday: June 15, 2002   0321 GMT Leonardo stowed in shuttle; Undocking set for Saturday The shuttle astronauts used Endeavour's robot arm to detach the Leonardo cargo module from the international space station's Unity module Friday, maneuvering it back into the cargo bay for return to Earth. Endeavour will undock from the station Saturday, setting the stage for landing Monday.    FULL STORY    MISSION STATUS CENTER    UNDOCKING TIMELINE    UPDATED MASTER FLIGHT PLAN    NASA TV SCHEDULE More mission coverage here:       Engineers troubleshoot robot arm software glitch The Canadian Space Agency and its major robotics contractor are troubleshooting a software glitch that is preventing the international space station's $600 million robot arm from powering up normally when drawing electricity from a new attachment platform.    FULL STORY Endeavour's spacewalkers discuss life in orbit For Franklin Chang-Diaz, blasting off aboard the shuttle Endeavour for a record-tying seventh space flight was all in a day's work. Taking his first spacewalk was another matter entirely. Asked if the experience was worth the wait, the Costa Rica-born astronaut said "Oh, absolutely, every minute of it."    FULL STORY    SPACEWALK STATS PAGE Researchers find breakup in asteroid belt A new study has identified a recent asteroid breakup event in the main asteroid belt. Computer simulations have shown that the event occurred 5.8 million years ago, when a 15-mile-wide asteroid in the main belt region shattered into numerous fragments following a collision.    FULL STORY Friday: June 14, 2002   0400 GMT Astronomers discover a solar system like ours The search for Earth-like planets around other stars took a step forward Thursday when astronomers announced the discovery of a solar system that more closely resembles our own solar system than any other to date.    FULL STORY Video coverage for subscribers only:    VIDEO: WATCH ENTIRE NASA NEWS CONFERENCE QT or RV Beauty in the eye of Hubble A dying star, IC 4406, dubbed the "Retina Nebula" is revealed in this month's Hubble Heritage image. Like many other so-called planetary nebulae, IC 4406 exhibits a high degree of symmetry; the left and right halves of the Hubble image are nearly mirror images of the other.    FULL STORY Spacewalkers complete repair work on station arm Two spacewalking surgeons operated on the international space station's $600 million robot arm Thursday, bolting on a replacement joint to fix what amounts to a broken wrist. Endeavour astronauts Franklin Chang-Diaz and Philippe Perrin completed a seven-hour, 17-minute spacewalk.    FULL STORY Video coverage for subscribers only:    VIDEO: THE ARM'S HAND REMOVED BY SPACEWALKERS QT or RV    VIDEO: NEW JOINT RELEASED FROM LAUNCH CARRIER QT or RV    VIDEO: REPLACEMENT WRIST JOINT BOLTED TO ARM QT or RV    VIDEO: OLD JOINT SECURED FOR RETURN TO EARTH QT or RV    VIDEO: SPACEWALKERS RETURN TO AIRLOCK QT or RV    VIDEO: THURSDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING QT or RV    VIDEO: ANIMATION OF ROBOTIC ARM REPAIR JOB QT or RV    VIDEO: CREW IN-FLIGHT NEWS CONFERENCE QT or RV    VIDEO: WEDNESDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING QT or RV Thursday: June 13, 2002   0400 GMT Long-duration astronauts need people skills To understand what's it's like to make a long-duration voyage aboard the international space station, imagine taking a really long trip in a car. And then imagine never getting a chance to stop or step outside, even if your traveling companion is driving you up the wall.    FULL STORY Sea Launch to loft Galaxy satellite Saturday After waiting more than a year for its next commercial satellite payload, Sea Launch is ready to fly this weekend to place the powerhouse Galaxy 3C telecommunications spacecraft into Earth orbit.    MISSION STATUS CENTER Climate pattern linked to Sun's magnetic cycles A Dartmouth geochemist examined existing sets of geophysical data and noticed something remarkable: the Sun's magnetic activity is varying in 100,000-year cycles, a much longer time span than previously thought, and this solar activity, in turn, may likely cause the 100,000-year climate cycles on Earth. This research helps scientists understand past climate trends and prepare for future ones.    FULL STORY Wednesday: June 12, 2002   0400 GMT Mobile base for robotic arm wired up by spacewalkers Franklin Chang-Diaz and Philippe Perrin made their second spacewalk Tuesday, stepping outside the International Space Station for a five-hour excursion to bolt in place and wire up the new mobile base for outpost's Canadian robotic arm.    FULL STORY    SPACEWALK STATS PAGE    MISSION STATUS CENTER    UPDATED MASTER FLIGHT PLAN    NASA TV SCHEDULE NASA picks Atlas 3 to launch powerful Mars probe NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, a spacecraft designed to snap the clearest images yet of the Red Planet, will be launched from Earth by Lockheed Martin's Atlas 3 rocket in August 2005, the space agency said Tuesday.    FULL STORY Atlas 3 picks up another commercial customer A mobile communications spacecraft designed to serve Japan and South Korea will be launched by a Lockheed Martin Atlas 3 rocket in late 2003 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, officials announced Tuesday.    FULL STORY Tuesday: June 11, 2002   0300 GMT Command of space station handed to new crew Expedition 4 commander Yuri Onufrienko turned over the international space station to Expedition 5 commander Valeri Korzun and his two crewmates Monday in a formal change-of-command ceremony marking the arrival of the station's fifth full-time crew.    FULL STORY    MISSION STATUS CENTER    UPDATED MASTER FLIGHT PLAN    NASA TV SCHEDULE Video coverage for subscribers only:    VIDEO: WATCH THE CHANGE OF COMMAND CEREMONY QT or RV    VIDEO: MONDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING QT or RV NASA picks NGST instrument, science team NASA has selected a team led by the University of Arizona, Tucson, to provide the primary near-infrared science camera for the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST), NASA's successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. The new telescope's primary science objective will be to look back to an extremely important period in the early history of the Universe when the first stars and galaxies began to form shortly after the big bang.    FULL STORY Station program manager announces his retirement Tommy Holloway, manager of the International Space Station Program Office at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, has announced plans to retire, effective July 3. Holloway's deputy, William H. Gerstenmaier, will take over as program manager.    FULL STORY Monday: June 10, 2002   1600 GMT Spacewalkers mount equipment to station hull A pair of first-time spacewalkers -- shuttle astronauts Franklin Chang-Diaz and Philippe Perrin -- took a Sunday stroll in space to move equipment from shuttle Endeavour's payload bay to the exterior of the International Space Station and ready the Canadian Mobile Base System for attachment to the complex.    FULL STORY    SPACEWALK STATS PAGE Video coverage for subscribers only:    VIDEO: VIEWS FROM PERRIN'S HELMETCAM DURING EVA QT or RV    VIDEO: CHANG-DIAZ RIDES ARM AT SUNRISE QT or RV    VIDEO: HELMETCAM OF GRAPPLE FIXTURE UNBOLTING QT or RV    VIDEO: SPECTACULAR VIEWS OF CHANG-DIAZ & PDGF QT or RV    VIDEO: MOBILE BASE SYSTEM LIFTED FROM SHUTTLE QT or RV    VIDEO: SUNDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING QT or RV Proton rocket launches Russian satellite A Russian domestic communications craft was successfully trucked into space Monday atop Proton rocket to replace a sister-satellite that crashed to Earth in a failed launch nearly three years ago.    FULL STORY - updated Sunday: June 9, 2002   0455 GMT One of station's stabilizing gyros suffers failure NASA engineers do not know what caused a bearing assembly in one of the space station's control moment gyros to fail Saturday morning or even whether the assembly stayed intact as the massive gyro wheel, spinning at some 6,600 rpm, quickly screeched to a halt.    FULL STORY - updated Video coverage for subscribers only:    VIDEO: SATURDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING QT or RV    VIDEO: PROFILE OF EXPEDITION 5 CREW QT or RV Italian cargo module attached to station Shuttle commander Kenneth Cockrell, operating Endeavour's 50-foot-long robot arm, pulled a $150 million cargo module from the orbiter's payload bay Saturday morning and successfully attached it to a downward-facing port on the international space station's Unity module.    FULL STORY Black hole cosmos' ultimate electricity generator? Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory believe that magnetic field lines extending a few million light years from galaxies into space may be the result of incredibly efficient energy-producing dynamos within black holes that are somewhat analogous to an electric motor.    FULL STORY Disk and jet from young star DL Tauri This is a composite image of the disk and jet from DL Tauri, a star that is still forming. The disk is comprised of dust and gas, and astronomers believe the Sun had a disk like this when it was young, about five billion years ago, and that the Earth and other solar system objects formed from material in its disk.    FULL STORY Saturday: June 8, 2002   0001 GMT Endeavour arrives at the International Space Station The shuttle Endeavour gently docked with the International Space Station Friday as the two spacecraft sailed along a southeasterly trajectory over the Pacific Ocean approaching New Zealand. Meanwhile, engineers this evening were assessing an apparent problem with the shuttle Endeavour's flash evaporator cooling system.    FULL STORY    MISSION STATUS CENTER - updates!    UPDATED MASTER FLIGHT PLAN    NASA TV SCHEDULE Video coverage for subscribers only:    VIDEO: INCREDIBLE VIEWS OF APPROACHING SHUTTLE QT or RV    VIDEO: ENDEAVOUR DOCKS TO THE SPACE STATION QT or RV    VIDEO: FRIDAY'S MISSION STATUS BRIEFING QT or RV Station turns into 'hotbed' for materials research Scientists will soon turn the International Space Station into a materials research laboratory to study "bad bubbles" that cause defects in metal alloys used to produce engine turbine blades and semiconductor crystals that are crucial components in electronic devices.    FULL STORY Survey unveils star cluster shredded by Milky Way A team of astronomers from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey collaboration has discovered a spectacular stream of stellar debris emanating from a star cluster that is being torn apart by the Milky Way.    FULL STORY Friday: June 7, 2002   0320 GMT Orbital rendezvous set between shuttle and station Space shuttle Endeavour is on course to dock with the International Space Station at 12:17 p.m. EDT Friday, kicking off a busy eight-day stay to exchange resident crews, perform three spacewalks and deliver supplies and equipment.    DOCKING PREVIEW STORY Video coverage for subscribers only:    VIDEO: ANIMATION OF SHUTTLE DOCKING TO STATION QT or RV    VIDEO: NARRATED OVERVIEW OF ENDEAVOUR'S FLIGHT QT or RV    VIDEO: PROFILE OF FOUR-MAN ORBITER CREW QT or RV First ever 'baby pictures' of infant supernova remnant Much as new parents excitedly share photographs of their baby's first smile and first steps, new images show the first-ever look at the early development of an infant supernova remnant. These images document for the first time the emergence and movement of "hot spots" at the points of impact between debris from an exploded star and surrounding gas clouds.    FULL STORY South Pole telescope maps heart of Milky Way A team has mapped molecular clouds near the center of our galaxy in unprecedented detail at submillimeter wavelengths. Their results suggest that we are headed for some celestial fireworks. Sometime in the next 300 million years, the galactic center will experience a dramatic burst of star formation and will shine with the light of thousands of newborn suns.    FULL STORY X-rays used to probe gravity field of neutron star With NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have detected features that may be the first direct evidence of the effect of gravity on radiation from a neutron star. This finding, if confirmed, could enable scientists to measure the gravitational field of neutron stars and determine whether they contain exotic forms of matter not seen on Earth.    FULL STORY Thursday: June 6, 2002   0430 GMT Shuttle Endeavour launches The shuttle Endeavour rocketed into orbit Wednesday afternoon, hot on the trail of the international space station for a critical crew exchange and three spacewalks next week to upgrade the lab's robot arm and to fix what amounts to a broken wrist.    FULL STORY    MISSION STATUS CENTER    PREVIEW OF ENDEAVOUR'S MISSION    UPDATED MASTER FLIGHT PLAN    LAUNCH EVENTS TIMELINE    NASA TV SCHEDULE Video coverage for subscribers only:    VIDEO: ASTRONAUTS DEPART QUARTERS FOR THE PAD QT or RV    VIDEO: SHORT CLIP OF ENDEAVOUR'S LIFTOFF QT or RV    VIDEO: ENDEAVOUR'S LAUNCH AS SEEN LIVEQT or RV    VIDEO: SEE ENDEAVOUR'S "TWANG" BEFORE LAUNCH QT or RV    VIDEO: CLOSE-UP OF MAIN ENGINE IGNITION QT or RV    VIDEO: ALTERNATE ANGLE OF ENGINE START QT or RV    VIDEO: VIEW FROM ATOP THE VAB ROOF QT or RV    VIDEO: WATER TOWER VIEW OF LIFTOFF QT or RV    VIDEO: VIEW FROM ANGLE IN FRONT OF PAD QT or RV    VIDEO: LOOKING UP AT 17-INCH DISCONNECT QT or RV    VIDEO: DRAMATIC PLAYALINDA TRACKER VIEW QT or RV    VIDEO: BEACH TRACKER VIEW THROUGH SRB SEP QT or RV    VIDEO: THE PAYLOAD BAY DOORS ARE OPENED QT or RV    VIDEO: POST-LAUNCH NEWS CONFERENCE QT or RV    MORE: STS-111 VIDEO INDEX    SUBSCRIBE NOW Hubble's infrared camera brought back to life After more than three years of inactivity, and thanks to a new cryogenic refrigerator, the Hubble Space Telescope's Near Infrared Camera and Multi Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) today debuts various breathtaking views of galaxies in several stages of development.    FULL STORY RHESSI satellite captures new light from the Sun The Sun emits strong, localized bursts of high energy X-rays before the UV brightening of large solar flares and high energy X-rays are constantly emitted from active regions and elsewhere on the Sun. These and other initial results from the new Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) spacecraft.    FULL STORY Wednesday: June 5, 2002   0800 GMT Endeavour engine repaired, launch set for Wednesday Engineers have completed the replacement of a nitrogen regulator in the shuttle Endeavour's left-side rocket pod and topped off the ship's on-board supplies of liquid oxygen and hydrogen, clearing the way for another launch attempt Wednesday afternoon. The weather remains a major question mark, however.    FULL STORY Video coverage for subscribers only:    VIDEO: TUESDAY'S COUNTDOWN STATUS BRIEFING QT or RV Joint statement from ISS Heads of Agency meeting The leaders of the space agencies taking part in the International Space Station met Monday at ESA's Headquarters in Paris to discuss the status of the program.    FULL STORY Replacement for infamous satellite rockets into space A communications satellite rescued in space 10 years ago by astronauts aboard space shuttle Endeavour now has a replacement on its way with the successful launch of Intelsat 905 aboard an Ariane rocket.    FULL STORY    MISSION STATUS CENTER A look back to the daring rescue of Intelsat 603 As the Intelsat 905 satellite nears its launch to assume the orbital position of the infamous Intelsat 603 spacecraft, we present this collection of video clips for our Spaceflight Now Plus subscribers. These movies show the highlights from the May 1992 space shuttle flight that rescued the stranded Intelsat 603 and attached a new rocket booster.    COMPLETE VIDEO LISTING Odyssey deploys boom to see what Mars is made of A 20-foot boom was deployed on NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey Tuesday so the space probe can accurately map the composition of the Red Planet and continue the search for water.    FULL STORY				The ultimate Apollo 11 DVD This exceptional chronicle of the historic Apollo 11 lunar landing mission features new digital transfers of film and television coverage unmatched by any other.  U.S. STORE  U.K. WORLDWIDE STORE STS-111 T-shirt Our special edition T-shirt features the space shuttle mission STS-111 emblem.  U.S. STORE  U.K. & WORLDWIDE STORE ADVERTISEMENT FREE Rocket Design Software How to design your own rockets -- FREE software available. Imagine launching your own rockets, and fully testing them prior to liftoff. See how high and fast they'll fly! Great educational resource for teachers, and simulation tool for engineers. Limited-time offer.  LEARN MORE NEW! Mission Report Apollo 11 - The NASA Mission Reports Vol. 3 is the first comprehensive study of man's first mission to another world is revealed in all of its startling complexity. Includes DVD!  U.S. STORE  WORLDWIDE STORE Contact us If you have a comment or question for Spaceflight Now, just send us an e-mail.