(STS-128)Nasa Assigns Crew For His Next Mission to Space Station!

NASA has assigned the crew for space shuttle mission STS-128. The flight will carry science and storage racks to the International Space Station.Marine Corps Col. Frederick W. "Rick" Sturckow will command space shuttle Atlantis on the STS-128 mission, targeted for launch July 30, 2009. Retired Air Force Col. Kevin A. Ford will serve as the pilot. Mission specialists are NASA astronauts John D. "Danny" Olivas, retired Army Col. Patrick G. Forrester, Jose M. Hernandez and European Space Agency (ESA)...

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(STS-127)Touchdown for Space Shuttle Endeavour!

Space shuttle Endeavour touched down at 10:48: a.m. EDT at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Commander Mark Polansky is expected to make a brief statement on the runway after the post-landing walk-around of the shuttle. The post-landing news conference is set for approximately 1 p.m. and will air live on NASA Television. The crew’s news conference is set to begin at about 3:15 p.m. The astronauts return to Houston's Ellington Field is tentatively set for about 5 p.m. Saturday.STS-127 was the...

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(STS-127)Shuttle Crew Completes Landing Systems Tests!

The shuttle crew earlier this morning checked out two systems for tomorrow’s landing. The astronauts completed a test of the Reaction Control System steering thrusters that will help control Endeavour’s attitude and speed after the deorbit burn. During that test, one of the jets, F2F, failed. This will not be an issue for landing. The crew also tested the shuttle aerosurfaces and flight control system that will be used once the shuttle enters the atmosphe...

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(STS-127)Crew Inspects Shuttle, Begins Preparations for Landing Friday!

Twin satellite deployments and a check of the systems that will control Endeavour’s return home to the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, are on tap today as the shuttle leads the International Space Station in orbit. The crew was awakened at 1:03 a.m. CDT to the sounds of “I Got You Babe,” performed by Sonny and Cher. The song was a special request for Koichi Wakata, the first Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut to serve as a long-duration resident of the station. Wakata spent 133 days as...

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Late Heat Shield Inspections for Shuttle!

Space shuttle Endeavour’s crew spent the day inspecting the spacecraft’s heat shield one last time and began early preparations for Friday’s return home to the Kennedy Space Center, Florida.With the International Space Station and its six-person crew slipping further and further behind following Wednesday’s undocking, Endeavour’s crew turned its attention to unlimbering the robot arm and boom extension. With its suite of sensitive instruments, the boom was used to scan the wing leading edges and...

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Space Shuttle Endeavour Undocks from Station!

Space shuttle Endeavour undocked from the International Space Station at 1:26 p.m. EDT. The crews of Endeavour and the International Space Station will part company today, with all of the docked mission’s objectives complete. The shuttle crew was awakened at 2:03 a.m. CDT to the strains of “Proud to Be an American” performed by Lee Greenwood. The song was selected for spacewalker Chris Cassidy, a former Navy SEAL, who now has 18 hours, five minutes of extravehicular activity to his credit over three...

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(STS-127) 5th & Final Crew Completes Spacewalk!

Spacewalkers Tom Marshburn and Chris Cassidy completed a four hour, 54 minute spacewalk at 12:27 p.m. EDT. Marshburn and Cassidy secured multi-layer insulation around the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator known as Dextre, split out power channels for two space station Control Moment Gyroscopes, installed video cameras on the front and back of the new Japanese Exposed Facility and performed a number of “get ahead” tasks, including tying down some cables and installing handrails and a portable...

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Fourth ( STS-127 ) Spacewalk Complete!

Mission specialists Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn finished replacing batteries on the International Space Station’s oldest solar arrays during a seven-hour, 12-minute spacewalk – the fourth of five planned during space shuttle Endeavour’s STS-127 mission. They installed four of six new batteries for the P6 Truss structure, where a pair of solar array wings collects sunlight for power generation. They stored four more of the old batteries onto a cargo carrier for return to Earth. That completed...

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Today's SpaceWalk - 1st Battery Replaced

At 11:17 a.m. EDT, STS-127 Mission Specialists Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn replaced the first of four batteries they plan to exchange during today’s spacewalk. They just completed releasing the fourth old battery from its location on the space station’s Port 6 truss.An hour and 35 minutes into the spacewalk, they are on the planned timeline and their spacesuit consumable levels are normal.STS-127 Mission Specialists Chris Cassidy and Tom Marshburn will tackle a challenging 7 ½-hour spacewalk...

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Dramatic Arctic Ice Thinning - Nasa

Arctic sea ice thinned dramatically between the winters of 2004 and 2008, with thin seasonal ice replacing thick older ice as the dominant type for the first time on record. The new results, based on data from a NASA Earth-orbiting spacecraft, provide further evidence for the rapid, ongoing transformation of the Arctic's ice cover.Scientists from NASA and the University of Washington in Seattle conducted the most comprehensive survey to date using observations from NASA's Ice, Cloud and land Elevation...

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STS-127 Lauch - Coundown Starts

The countdown to liftoff of space shuttle Endeavour on its STS-127 mission began 10 p.m yesterday night. EDT when clocks begin ticking backward from T-43 hours. Endeavour's seven astronauts arrived at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday afternoon and are making their final preparations for launch, scheduled for July 11 at 7:39 p.m. "At this point, I'm happy to report we are ready to proceed with the launch countdown," NASA Test Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said Wednesday morning during...

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NASA's Fermi Telescope

NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, astronomers now are getting their best look at those whirling stellar cinders known as pulsars. In two studies published in the July 2 edition of Science Express, international teams have analyzed gamma-rays from two dozen pulsars, including 16 discovered by Fermi. Fermi is the first spacecraft able to identify pulsars by their gamma-ray emission alone.A pulsar is the rapidly spinning and highly magnetized core left behind when a massive star explodes. Most...

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Orion Spacecraft - Space Station On Virtual Mission

It was a virtually flawless launch, a perfect mission, so far. The ground operations personnel reported early on that all was well; tanking and launch went off almost without a hitch and was only briefly delayed while the ground team verified that a bird strike on the Upper Stage did no damage. Orion is on its way to dock with the International Space Station.The launch of the first Virtual Mission for NASA’s Constellation Program was an unqualified success. Mission controllers, ground operators...

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LRO's First Moon Images

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has transmitted its first images since reaching the moon on June 23. The spacecraft's two cameras, collectively known as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, were activated June 30. The cameras are working well and have returned images of a region in the lunar highlands south of Mare Nubium (Sea of Clouds).As the moon rotates beneath LRO, LROC gradually will build up photographic maps of the lunar surface."Our first images were taken along the moon's...

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Do U Know LRO?

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter!Five Things to Know about LRO 1. LRO is leading NASA’s way back to the moon. 2. The primary objective of LRO is to conduct investigations that prepare for future lunar exploration. Specifically LRO will scout for safe and compelling landing sites, locate potential resources (with special attention to the possibility of water ice) and characterize the effects of prolonged exposure to the lunar radiation environment. In addition to its exploration mission, LRO will...

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Break The Ice - Nasa Airborne Radars!

Arctic Trek to 'Break the Ice' on New NASA Airborne Radars!PASADENA, Calif. Says - NASA will 'break the ice' on a pair of new airborne radars that can help monitor climate change when a team of scientists embarks this week on a two-month expedition to the vast, frigid terrain of Greenland and Iceland.Scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif., will depart Dryden Friday, May 1, on a modified NASA Gulfstream III aircraft....

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Hurricanes - Five!

Five Things About Hurricanes!JPL scientist Bjorn Lambrigtsen goes on hurricane watch every June. He is part of a large effort to track hurricanes and understand what powers them. Lambrigtsen specializes in the field of microwave instruments, which fly aboard research planes and spacecraft, penetrating through thick clouds to see the heart of a hurricane. While scientists are adept at predicting where these powerful storms will hit land, there are crucial aspects they still need to wrench from these...

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Arctic Smoke Signals - Nasa(Arctas)

Finding Arctic Smoke Signals Not A Problem For ARCTAS!A fleet of airplanes outfitted with sensors set out in the spring and summer of 2008 to study pollution in the Arctic atmosphere -- observing pollution from humans in the spring portion and from naturally occurring fires in the summer. Among other goals, the Arctic Research of the Composition of the Troposphere from Aircraft and Satellites (ARCTAS) field campaign sought to piece together a more detailed picture of how widespread forest fires...

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Amazing NASA Animation

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