Space and astronomy news
It’s been called a white elephant, an orbital turkey, a money pit, and an expensive erector set. Seemingly, there’s even people at NASA who think building it was a mistake. The International Space Station has been plagued with repeated delays, cost overruns, and bad press. Additionally, the ISS has never really caught the fancy of …
Continue reading “I Heart the ISS: Ten Reasons to Love the International Space Station”
Astronauts on board the International Space Station used the station’s robotic arm to move the Italian-built Harmony module (aka Node 2) to its final location today. It’s now connected to the forward facing port of the US Destiny laboratory, making way for the upcoming European Columbus laboratory. The Harmony module was delivered to the station …
Atlantis and its astronaut crew returned safely back to Earth this morning after 12 days in space. The shuttle touched down at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 1021 GMT (6:21am EDT). During its mission, the shuttle and astronauts delivered and installed the P3/P4 truss segment to the International Space Station, dramatically increasing its …
The astronauts of STS-115 spent a second day outside the International Space Station working to connect up the new P3/P4 truss element. During the 7-hour spacewalk Dan Burbank and Steve MacLean had to remove insulation covers and hundreds of bolts from the truss. The final test will come on Thursday, when the new electricity-generating solar …
Astronauts on board the International Space Station have had a busy week preparing for their next Progress cargo ship. On Monday they detached Progress 20 from the station, which will now burn up through the Earth’s atmosphere. If all goes well, Progress 22 will blast off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on June 24, and link …
ESA announced today that Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli will be joining the crew of STS-120, due to launch in summer 2007. This mission will carry Node 2, an Italian-built connecting module, to the International Space Station. The station will eventually have 3 nodes; node 1 is the Unity module, which was the second ISS module …
The Soyuz spacecraft carrying the crew of Expedition 12 and space tourist Greg Olsen docked with the International Space Station on Monday. The visitors were greeted by the crew of Expedition 11, who have been on board the station for nearly 6 months. Olsen will conduct several experiments on the station, and then return with the crew of Expedition 11 in about a week.
NASA astronauts on board Discovery and the International Space Station held a tribute to remember the crew of Columbia, which was destroyed during its re-entry more than two years ago. Each crewmember wore a red shirt with Columbia’s STS-107 mission patch, and spoke, paying their respects to the crew of STS-107, as well as Challenger, Apollo 1, Soyuz 1 and 11.
Astronaut Steve Robinson successfully pulled out the protruding gap fillers from between the shuttle’s thermal protection tiles during his 7 hour spacewalk yesterday. The gap fillers came out with a simple tug; Robinson didn’t need the makeshift hacksaw he’d brought with him. NASA officials were worried that the Nextel fabric could lead to overheating in the area during Discovery’s re-entry. The filler material keeps the shuttle’s heat tiles from bumping into each other during launch, but aren’t necessary during landing.
Shuttle managers decided on Wednesday that Discovery’s leading wing edge is safe for it to make re-entry. This is the area that was damaged by falling foam during Columbia’s launch, and caused the catastrophe during re-entry. High resolution photographs have analyzed every part of Discovery, and the only concerning area were some protruding tile gap fillers, which will be fixed during a spacewalk on Wednesday.