Sunday: July 7, 2002  0001 GMT
Legacy of Mars Pathfinder pushes future missions
On Friday, July 4, 1997, American flags dressed the nation in a giant Independence Day celebration. How appropriate then that 119 million miles away from Earth, there was even more to celebrate: NASA's Mars Pathfinder mission had completed its seven-month journey by bouncing to a landing on Mars and opening up a whole new world of exploration.
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Pathfinder
New facility for developing space instruments
An innovative calibration and instrument development facility at Southwest Research Institute is helping scientists and engineers test and design space plasma instruments far faster and more reliably than previously possible.
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SwRI
Saturday: July 6, 2002  0312 GMT
Ariane 5 rocket successfully lofts two spacecraft
Europe's Ariane 5 rocket launched its first commercial communications satellite payload in a year on Friday night, lofting French and Japanese spacecraft into Earth orbit.
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Ariane
Friday: July 5, 2002  0300 GMT
High-energy activity heats up the Whirpool Galaxy
X-rays from a rare type of supernova in the Whirpool Galaxy were recently observed, thanks to the fine resolution of NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The team of researchers also detected a large number of point-like X-ray sources due to black holes and neutron stars in binary star systems.
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Chandra
NASA extends shuttle SRB contract through May 2007
NASA has extended to May 2007 its six-and-a-half-year $2.4 billion contract with ATK Thiokol Propulsion in Brigham City, Utah, for the production and refurbishment of 70 Reusable Solid Rocket Motors for the space shuttle program.
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SRB
Thursday: July 4, 2002  0406 GMT
Ariane 5 to loft 2 satellites
In just its second flight of 2002, Europe's new generation Ariane 5 rocket is set to launch a pair of communications satellites for customers in France and Japan on Friday evening. Liftoff is scheduled to occur at 2321 GMT (7:21 p.m. EDT) from the ELA-3 launch pad in Kourou, French Guiana.
   MISSION STATUS CENTER
Ariane
JPL navigators drive two-for-one comet mission
NASA's Comet Nucleus Tour will rely on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's navigation experts to guide the craft on its tricky journey toward two comets to find out how the icy, rocky bodies evolve as they approach the Sun.
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Delta 2
Wednesday: July 3, 2002  1600 GMT
Probe launched to see fossils of planet formation
A tiny space probe was dispatched from Earth this morning for a tantalizing tour of comets -- the frozen time capsules that hold the primordial building blocks left over from the creation of our solar system.
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Delta 2
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Colorful fireworks finale caps a star's life
Glowing gaseous streamers of red, white, and blue -- as well as green and pink -- illuminate the heavens like Fourth of July fireworks. The colorful streamers that float across the sky in this photo taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope were created by one of the biggest firecrackers seen to go off in our galaxy in recorded history, the titanic supernova explosion of a massive star.
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Hubble
Canada's SCISAT-1 unveiled
And the countdown begins. Canada's first science satellite in over thirty years, SCISAT-1, was unveiled Tuesday at a ceremony at Magellan Aerospace's Bristol facility in Winnipeg. Scheduled for launch in January, SCISAT-1 will help a team of Canadian and international scientists improve their understanding of the depletion of the ozone layer, with a special emphasis on the changes occurring over Canada and in the Arctic.
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SCISAT-1
Tuesday: July 2, 2002  0343 GMT
Craft to launch Wednesday on quest to study comets
NASA's CONTOUR space probe is ready to depart Earth early Wednesday for the first leg of its voyage to observe the hearts of comets -- the frozen remnants from the birth of our solar system. Liftoff aboard a Boeing Delta 2 rocket is set for 2:47 a.m. EDT (0647 GMT) from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
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CONTOUR
At 95, comet man embarks on out-of-this-world tour
As the rocket blasts with CONTOUR, it will carry with it the thoughts and hopes of many earthbound scientists. But none of these scientists is more eminent than Dr. Fred L. Whipple, the oldest-ever member of a space mission science team.
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Whipple
Rosetta wishes CONTOUR luck chasing comets
Comets are suddenly in vogue in space research. ESA is getting ready to send its comet chaser Rosetta in January 2003 to rendezvous with Comet Wirtanen and study it in immense detail.
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Rosetta
2002 comet awards announced
Want some quick money in these days of WorldCom and Enron? Go and find a comet! An annual award of several thousand dollars for discoveries of comets by amateur astronomers has just been announced for the fourth consecutive year.
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Comet
Monday: July 1, 2002  0010 GMT
NASA sets Wednesday as launch date for comet probe
NASA said Sunday that launch preparations are now on schedule for liftoff of the Boeing Delta 2 rocket with the CONTOUR comet probe early Wednesday morning from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
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LC-17
Earth observing technology satellite proves a success
The new Earth monitoring technology aboard NASA's Earth-Observing 1 (EO-1) satellite has proven itself invaluable in its clarity and ability to more accurately identify objects on the Earth's surface, and will become part of a long-term Earth monitoring mission on the next Landsat satellite.
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EO-1



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