UT Briefs: Shuttle Lands, Re-living Phoenix

By Nancy Atkinson - May 24, 2009 08:06 PM UTC | Missions

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Space Shuttle Lands

Space shuttle Atlantis landed safely in California on Sunday morning after "dynamic and unpredictable" weather kept the orbiter from returning to Florida. Atlantis touched down on runway 22 of Edwards Air Force Base at 11:39 am EDT (1539 GMT) Sunday, the first of two opportunities to land the shuttle in California. Atlantis spent nearly 13 days in orbit on the STS-125 mission, successfully repairing and upgrading the Hubble Space Telescope during a series of five spacewalks. Atlantis will be ferried to Kennedy Space Center on top of a modified 747 in about a week. Next shuttle mission: STS-127, slated for liftoff on June 13, on a trip to the International Space Station.

Remembering Phoenix

Do you remember what you were doing a year ago? You may recall the Phoenix Mars lander touched down on the Red Planet a year ago, and if you were on Twitter back then, you could follow the spacecraft's progress via the fledgling social networking device. The "voice" of

Phoenix's Twitter account,

Veronica McGregor, is re-living the events of a year ago by re-posting her "Tweets" in real time as they were written a year ago. It is a fun way to stroll down memory lane.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com