Washington (AFP) Aug 15, 2007 - Two astronauts floating outside the International Space Station were forced to cut short their spacewalk Wednesday after one of them found a hole in his spacesuit's left glove.
Houston, TX (SPX) Aug 14, 2007 - An undersea mission simulating the space environment will provide data for development of tools to quickly assess stress, fatigue and cognitive fitness in preparation for performing critical mission tasks. On exploration missions, quick, self tests could allow astronauts to assess how they are functioning from a cognitive performance standpoint as it relates to fatigue and stress, said David F. Dinges, Ph.D., team leader of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute's Neurobehavioral and Psychosocial Factors Team.
Beijing (AFP) Aug 13, 2007 - China's historic first manned space mission narrowly averted disaster when ground control lost contact with the returning space capsule, China revealed for the first time Monday, four years later.
Washington (AFP) Aug 13, 2007 - A pair of spacewalking astronauts replaced a broken gyroscope on the International Space Station on Monday as NASA continued to examine a gouge on shuttle Endeavour's heat shield.
Huntsville, AL (SPX) Aug 12, 2007 - NASA has signed a $1.8 billion contract with Alliant Techsystems, known as ATK, located near Brigham City, Utah, for the design, development, testing, and evaluation of the first stage of the Ares I and Ares V launch vehicles. This contract continues work that began on April 17, 2006, and includes delivery of five ground static test motors, two ground vibration test articles and four flight test stages, including one for the Ares I-X test flight.
Washington (AFP) Aug 12, 2007 - NASA engineers on Monday pored over new imagery of the space shuttle Endeavour's underbelly to decide if its damaged heat shield needed repair, as astronauts prepared for the mission's second spacewalk. The three-dimensional images of a gouge in the shield were taken Sunday by a camera, and measured by a laser, both of which were trained on the shuttle's protective surface.
Washington (AFP) Aug 12, 2007 - Damage to the US space shuttle Endeavour's protective thermal shield caused by a piece of debris during launch appears to be less serious than previously believed, a NASA official said.
Washington (AFP) Aug 12, 2007 - NASA specialists on Sunday began analyzing a gash in the shuttle Endeavour's heat shield to decide if it needs repair, and said it was adding three days to the mission to continue work on the International Space Station.
Washington (AFP) Aug 11, 2007 - US astronauts prepared early Saturday for the first spacewalk of the shuttle Endeavour mission following discovery of damage in the spacecraft's protective shield.
Washington (UPI) Aug 10, 2007 - The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is soliciting ideas to help shape its logistics services for the International Space Station. The space agency Tuesday issued a formal Request for Information seeking assistance in planning for safe, cost effective and reliable logistics services for the space station, as well as other payload launch services.
Moffett Field CA (SPX) Aug 10, 2007 - When space shuttle Endeavour rocketed into space yesterday, it took along a common microorganism normally found in the upper respiratory tract of approximately 40 percent of the healthy human population. The experiment, Streptococcus pneumoniae Expression of Genes in Space (SPEGIS), part of the STS-118 space shuttle mission launched Aug. 8, 2007, will investigate the effects of the space environment on the common microorganism Streptococcus pneumoniae (S. Pneumoniae).
Washington (AFP) Aug 10, 2007 - NASA detected an apparent gouge on shuttle Endeavour's heat shield during a routine inspection Friday, after the orbiter docked with the International Space Station (ISS).
Ashburn (SPX) Aug 09, 2007 - AeroAstro today announced that STPSat-1 payload, SHIMMER, has successfully gathered data from the June 8th launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis. Twenty-four hours before the launch, operators at the Space Development and Test Wing, Kirtland AFB, NM rolled the spacecraft 0.66 degrees by ground command to point the payload to a higher altitude to observe the vapor plume put off by the STS-117 mission.
Cape Canaveral (AFP) Aug 09, 2007 - The US space shuttle Endeavour orbited Earth on Thursday, carrying the first teacher in space 21 years after the Challenger explosion ended the dreams of another educator astronaut. Class is in session, a NASA mission control spokesman said after the external fuel tank separated from the shuttle and the Endeavour entered its preliminary orbit less than nine minutes into the flight.
Washington (UPI) Aug 09, 2007 - The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has opened registration for its Lunar Plant Growth Chamber engineering challenge. Participating students will design and build greenhouse chambers to analyze and study plant growth from some of the 10 million cinnamon basil seeds that are to be flown into space aboard space shuttle Endeavour this week and then returned to Earth.
Washington DC (AFP) Aug 08, 2007 - NASA on Monday gave the final green light to a space shuttle launch planned for Wednesday, an event the US space agency hopes will help the public forget recent stories of drunk and lovesick astronauts. The National Aeronautics and Space Agency has already started the countdown for shuttle Endeavour's launch, scheduled for 6:36 pm (2236 GMT) Wednesday at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The flight crew is down here, well-trained and ready to go fly, said space shuttle program manager Wayne Hale. Based on the review that we had today, we're ready to go fly in two days.
