Sunday: November 17, 2002   0140 GMT Unexpected findings in 'little' Big Bang Scientists have recreated a temperature not seen since the first microsecond of the birth of the universe and found that the event did not unfold quite the way they expected, according to a recent paper.    FULL STORY Set your own course for the stars To get around, satellites sailing through space use the same tools that ancient mariners used to navigate the inhospitable oceans - the stars. However, soon, instead of sending back details of their position to experts here on Earth, spacecraft will be able to calculate and adjust their course all by themselves.    FULL STORY Saturday: November 16, 2002   0400 GMT Boeing delays debut launch of Delta 4 rocket Boeing won't send its first Delta 4 rocket into space Saturday as planned after a last-minute engine issue was raised and meteorologists predicted virtually no hope of favorable weather conditions.    FULL STORY Shuttle Endeavour launch delayed until Friday Shuttle program manager Ronald Dittemore said Friday night Endeavour's launch was delayed to no earlier than next Friday to give engineers more time to assess the severity of damage to the shuttle's robot arm and to confirm the fatigue-related crack in an oxygen line flex hose is not any sort of generic, fleet-wide problem.    FULL STORY Friday: November 15, 2002   0333 GMT Fatigue possible culprit in shuttle oxygen leak The leaking oxygen line that grounded the shuttle Endeavour last Sunday evening may have failed because of structural fatigue, engineers said Thursday, raising the possibility of a fleet-wide issue. Technicians have been asked to examine oxygen and nitrogen lines in the shuttle Discovery overnight to determine if any obvious problems are present on that vehicle.    FULL STORY Weather still main concern for Delta 4 launch The final launch readiness reviews will be held Friday to give approval for Saturday's scheduled countdown and liftoff of the inaugural Delta 4 rocket. Expected lousy weather conditions at the Cape remain the major threat to an on-time launch.    MISSION STATUS CENTER Thursday: November 14, 2002   0615 GMT Delta 4 voyage will be tension-filled 37 minutes The first Boeing Delta 4 rocket will race from its Florida launch pad into an orbit stretching 19,000 nautical miles above Earth Saturday to deploy its European-built communications satellite cargo at the culmination of a 37-minute flight.    LAUNCH EVENTS TIMELINE    GROUND TRACK MAP    LAUNCH HAZARD AREA Oxygen leak fixed; robot arm analysis ongoing Engineers pinpointed the source of a launch-delaying oxygen leak Wednesday, cut out a damaged section of metal-sheathed flex hose and inserted a replacement segment to complete a tricky repair job aboard the space shuttle Endeavour.    FULL STORY    WEDNESDAY MORNING UPDATE Video coverage for subscribers only:    VIDEO: OXYGEN LINE LEAK REPAIRED QT or RV    SUBSCRIBE NOW NASA space transportation plan released President George W. Bush has submitted an amendment to his fiscal year 2003 budget request to accelerate implementation of a new Integrated Space Transportation Plan (ISTP) for NASA. Driven by the agency's new vision and mission, the Administration released details of a new, coordinated shift in three of the agency's important space flight programs.    FULL STORY Exceptionally bright eruption on Jovian moon Io Routine monitoring of volcanic activity on Jupiter's moon Io, now possible through advanced adaptive optics on the Keck II telescope in Hawaii, has turned up the largest eruption to date on Io's surface or in the solar system.    FULL STORY Mars rover takes baby steps Like any travelers worth their frequent flyer miles, the twin rovers of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission must prepare for a long journey. The twins face a daunting 286 million mile voyage to Mars. To ensure their readiness, scientists and engineers at JPL are testing the rovers by simulating conditions they'll experience en route to and upon arrival at the red planet.    FULL STORY Wednesday: November 13, 2002   0555 GMT Shuttle's robot arm struck during repair work Engineers installing an access platform in the shuttle Endeavour's cargo bay for work to repair an oxygen leak inadvertently hit the ship's 50-foot-long robot arm Tuesday, tearing the fragile space crane's protective thermal insulation. Whether any other, possibly more serious, damage occurred is not yet known.    FULL STORY See more coverage here:       Delta 4 fleet goes from 'Medium' to 'Heavy' Delta rockets have been flying for more than 40 years, but the new Delta 4 dwarfs its predecessors in sheer size and Earth-shaking power to launch much larger cargos than possible in the past.    FULL STORY    LAUNCH WEATHER FORECAST    ARCHIVED DELTA 4 COVERAGE New engine allows Delta 4 to 'defeat gravity' Powering the Delta 4 is Rocketdyne's RS-68 powerplant, the first large all-American liquid-fueled rocket engine built since the space shuttle main engine a quarter-century ago.    FULL STORY    VIDEO LISTING Satellite finds electrons brought to near-light speed A chance observation of high-energy electrons emanating from a tiny region of space where the sun and Earth's magnetic fields intertwine provides the first solid evidence that a process called magnetic reconnection accelerates electrons to near the speed of light in the Earth's magnetosphere and perhaps throughout the universe where magnetic fields entangle.    FULL STORY Tuesday: November 12, 2002   0612 GMT Delta 4 rocket to make maiden flight Saturday Boeing's next-generation Delta 4 rocket blasts off from Cape Canaveral this weekend on its debut launch to shape its destiny in the fiercely competitive commercial marketplace and prove reliability to the vehicle's major backer -- the U.S. Air Force.    FULL STORY    VIDEO LISTING    ARCHIVED DELTA 4 COVERAGE New evidence for dark energy in the Universe An international team of astronomers, led by scientists at the University of Manchester have produced new evidence that most of the energy in the Universe is in the form of the mysterious "dark energy".    FULL STORY Boeing receives GPS 2F production approval Boeing Integrated Defense Systems has received approval from the U.S. Air Force to begin space vehicle production of the first three satellites for the Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) 2F program, all of which will be built by Boeing Satellite Systems.    FULL STORY Monday: November 11, 2002   0633 GMT Oxygen leak delays shuttle Endeavour's launch Launch of the shuttle Endeavour on a space station assembly mission is off at least a week - and possibly longer - because of troubleshooting to fix a leak in one of two systems that feed oxygen to the ship's crew cabin.    FULL STORY    MISSION STATUS CENTER See more coverage here:       Video coverage for subscribers only:    VIDEO: NEWS CONFERENCE GIVES DETAILS ABOUT LEAK QT or RV    VIDEO: NASA ANNOUNCES THE LAUNCH IS POSTPONED QT or RV    VIDEO: COMMANDER INFORMED OF LAUNCH SCRUB QT or RV    MORE: COMPLETE VIDEO LISTING    SUBSCRIBE NOW Black hole at Milky Way's center is on starvation diet The center of our Galaxy is a dynamic interplay of interdependent activity where stellar processes play a far more active role than scientists originally believed. The big surprise is that these processes leave our Galaxy's central black hole starving for "food," a new study suggests.    FULL STORY				News Archive Nov. 4-10: A spectacular solar show; Soyuz returns to Earth; Endeavour ready to fly; Mars glows in X-rays; Hubble shows an old star that gave up the ghost; Stunning views of Mt. Etna eruption from space station; Galileo enters safe mode during last science mission; Cargo mounted atop Delta 4 as debut launch nears. Oct. 28-Nov. 3: Stardust zooms past asteroid Annefrank; Saturn-bound Cassini probe sees its destination; Soyuz taxi crew launches; Red freckles on Europa suggest 'lava lamp' action; Satellite sees 200-mile ash, smoke plume from Mt. Etna; GPS launch on hold after Delta 2 rocket damaged; Kuiper Belt implicated in cosmic rays mystery; Solid-fueled booster a step closer to Atlas 5 use. Oct. 21-27: Scientists boost tally of moons around Uranus; New way of finding planets; Dark matter reality check; Surfing a black hole; Integral makes its first measurements. More news  See our weekly archive of space news. 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 Contact us If you have a comment or question for Spaceflight Now, just send us an e-mail.