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Atlantis launch coverage

Shuttle Atlantis blasted off Friday evening on its mission to the space station.

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Atlantis date set

NASA leaders hold this news briefing to announce shuttle Atlantis' launch date and recap the Flight Readiness Review.

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Phoenix: At the Cape

NASA's Mars lander named Phoenix has arrive at Kennedy Space Center to begin preparations for launch in August.

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STS-63: A rendezvous with space station Mir

As a prelude to future dockings between American space shuttles and the Russian space station Mir, the two countries had a test rendezvous in Feb. 1995.

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"Apollo 17: On The Shoulders of Giants"

Apollo's final lunar voyage is relived in this movie. The film depicts the highlights of Apollo 17's journey to Taurus-Littrow and looks to the future Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz and shuttle programs.

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Atlantis returns to pad

Two months after rolling off the launch pad to seek repairs to the hail-damaged external fuel tank, space shuttle Atlantis returns to pad 39A for mission STS-117.

 Part 1 | Part 2

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Russian engineers continue computer troubleshooting
BY WILLIAM HARWOOD
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION
Posted: June 13, 2007

Three critical computers in the Russian section of the international space station that help control the lab's orientation remain out of action today following problems Tuesday. Among other things, the station uses the computers to fire Russian rocket thrusters to adjust the station's attitude when U.S. gyroscopes are insufficient.

The control system computers work in concert, comparing results as a safeguard against bad data or results. On Tuesday, amid work to attach a new 36,000-pound U.S. solar array segment to the station, the computers apparently crashed because of an as-yet-unknown problem. Russian engineers then attempted to reboot the machines to recover from the problem, but they were not successful. Additional attempts today failed as well, officials said.

Maintaining the proper orientation is critical for station operations to ensure its solar arrays generate enough electricity and to maintain temperatures within allowable limits. The Russian computer system also controls a variety of other systems, including the Elektron oxygen generator. Life support systems, however, can be commanded independently.

At present, the control moment gyroscopes in the U.S. segment are maintaining attitude and the shuttle Atlantis' rocket thrusters can be used if larger motions are required. But eventually, the Russian computer system must be restored to operation.

It is not yet clear whether the Russian computer system suffered a hardware failure or some sort of software problem. One engineer said a hardware failure that could take out all three attitude attitude control computers was unlikely and speculated the Russians eventually would sort out the problem and restart the computers.

Unlike NASA, the Russian space agency does not have its own communications satellites. To troubleshoot the computer problem, Russian engineers must wait until the station is within line-of-site of Russian ground stations to downlink telemetry. That will not happen again until early Thursday.

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