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Space Travel Editorial Team
Editorial Team

Space Travel Editorial Team

Editorial Team

The Space Travel Editorial Team produces Space Travel's coverage of human spaceflight and access to space. We report on launch, crewed missions and space tourism, and the propulsion, vehicles and human factors of getting people to space. Articles reflect our team's collective editorial process, source verification, drafting, technical review, and editing, rather than a single writer's work. Space Travel takes editorial responsibility for content under this byline. For more on how we work, see our editorial policy.

Legacy Reports

NASA Launches Space Shuttle Endeavour For Station Teach-In

Washington (AFP) Aug 08, 2007 - Space Shuttle Endeavour was blasted off early Wednesday evening sending the first teacher into space 21 years after the Challenger explosion tragically ended the dream of another pioneering teacher. Teacher-turned-astronaut Barbara Morgan, 55, has become the star of the second shuttle mission to the International Space Station this year. Weather conditions were perfect and all other countdown procedures went smoothly allowing an on time lift off at 6:36 pm (2236 GMT) Wednesday from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Aug 8, 2007
Legacy Reports

NASA Develops Wireless Tile Scanner For Space Shuttle Inspection

Moffett Field, CA (SPX) Aug 08, 2007 - A new space shuttle tile inspection method using NASA-built, wireless scanners is replacing manual inspection. The new process begins with the upcoming shuttle mission, STS-118. Endeavour is scheduled to launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, Aug. 8 at 6:36 p.m. EDT. Technicians have been using six new scanners to look for cracks and other imperfections in some of the 24,000 tiles that cover space shuttle Endeavour.

Aug 8, 2007
Legacy Reports

Russian Proton-M Rocket To Launch Japanese Telecoms Satellite

Moscow (RIA Novosti) Aug 08, 2007 - A Russian Proton-M carrier rocket will put a Japanese telecommunications satellite into orbit in September, a leading Russian space company said Tuesday. JCSAT-11, an A2100 satellite built by U.S.-based Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems, will join a cluster of nine satellites operated by Japan's JSAT Corporation. The new satellite will provide broadcast and transponder capacity for a number of telecoms companies, including SKY Perfect TV, a leading digital broadcasting service provider in Japan.

Aug 8, 2007
Legacy Reports

Teacher Readies For NASA Endeavour Space-Station Shot

Washington, Aug 8 (AFP) Aug 08, 2007 - Twenty-one years after a pioneering teacher was killed in the launch explosion of the US shuttle Challenger, another primary school teacher will Wednesday shrug off that disaster and climb in the Endeavour shuttle for an ambitious mission into space. NASA hopes career teacher Barbara Morgan, 55, will safely complete the trip to the International Space Station and help douse the media glare on stories of drunken and love-sick astronauts and space shuttle failures like the 1986 tragedy and the 2003 Columbia disaster.

Aug 8, 2007
Legacy Reports

ILS to Launch Inmarsat Satellite On Proton Vehicle Next Spring

McLean VA (SPX) Aug 08, 2007 - International Launch Services (ILS) and Inmarsat announced a contract for launch of the Inmarsat 4-F3 satellite on a Proton Breeze M vehicle in early 2008. This satellite, third in the constellation, will enable Inmarsat to offer global coverage with its BGAN mobile broadband service, as well as existing services. Launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan is planned for the March-April time period. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Aug 8, 2007
Legacy Reports

UC Experts Detail New Standard For Cleaner Transportation Fuels

Davis CA (SPX) Aug 07, 2007 - University of California experts today released their much-anticipated blueprint for fighting global warming by reducing the amount of carbon emitted when transportation fuels are used in California. This Low Carbon Fuel Standard, designed to stimulate improvements in transportation-fuel technologies, is expected to become the foundation for similar initiatives in other states, as well as nationally and internationally.

Aug 7, 2007
Legacy Reports

Indigenous Cryogenic Stage Tested For Eight Minutes

Thiruvananthapuram, India (SPX) Aug 07, 2007 - The indigenously developed cryogenic stage, to be used as the upper stage of India's Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), was ground tested for a long duration of eight minutes today (August 4, 2007) at Liquid Propulsion test facility at Mahendragiri in Tamil Nadu. All the parameters of the stage and the engine were normal. Earlier test was for a short duration of 50 seconds. Today's successful test constitutes a major milestone towards the qualification of the stage.

Aug 7, 2007
Legacy Reports

Historic Phoenix Mars Mission Flies Actel RTAX-S Devices

Mountain View CA (SPX) Aug 07, 2007 - Bringing the benefits of low-power solutions to mission-essential instruments, Actel reports that its radiation-tolerant RTAX-S field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are aboard NASA's Phoenix mission to Mars, which launched August 4 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The Phoenix spacecraft includes a Meteorological Station (MET), provided by the Canadian Space Agency.

Aug 7, 2007
Legacy Reports

Countdown Underway For Shuttle Flight

Washington (AFP) Aug 06, 2007 - NASA on Monday forecast a 70 percent chance of good weather for Wednesday's space shuttle launch, an event the US space agency hopes will help the public forget the recent stories of drunk and lovesick astronauts. The National Aeronautics and Space Agency started the countdown for the Endeavour shuttle Sunday at Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 8:00 pm (2400 GMT) Sunday toward liftoff scheduled for 6:36 pm (2236 GMT) on August 8. Jeff Spaulding, NASA Test Director, said there were no outstanding problems that might stall the flight.

Aug 6, 2007
Legacy Reports

Progress Cargo Ship With Computer Equipment Docks With ISS

Moscow (RIA Novosti) Aug 06, 2007 - The Progress M-61 cargo spacecraft carrying food, water, and fuel supplies for the crew, and equipment to repair onboard computers has automatically docked with the global orbital station, the mission control said. The cargo ship docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on schedule at 22:40 Moscow time (18:40 GMT) Sunday delivering much needed additional equipment to fix the onboard laptops of the Russian segment, which crashed on June 11. The Russian crew, Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov, had temporarily repaired the damage but extra equipment was required.

Aug 6, 2007
Legacy Reports

Weather Forecast Clear For Space Shuttle Endeavour Launch

Cape Canaveral FL (SPX) Aug 06, 2007 - In Firing Room 4 of the launch control center at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, the countdown clock began ticking backward on schedule for a launch at 6:36 p.m. on Wednesday. All countdown preparations are proceeding as planned at Launch Pad 39-A to meet an on-time launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour. The weather forecast for launch day looks promising. Currently, there's only a 30% chance that isolated showers or anvil clouds could prevent launch. This prediction remains the same in the event of a 24-hour delay.

Aug 6, 2007
Legacy Reports

Progress 26 To Dock Sunday At Station

Houston TX (JSC) Aug 05, 2007 - The ISS Progress 26 (P26) is on course to arrive at the International Space Station just about on time, but the space shuttle Endeavour is going to be a little later than planned. The station crew members, Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineers Oleg Kotov and Clay Anderson, got an early start to their weekend with a light-duty day on Friday. It was scheduled because Sunday will be a busy day, with the arrival of the new Progress scheduled for about 2 40 p.m. EDT.

Aug 5, 2007
Legacy Reports

Ecliptic Celebrates A Decade Of Successful RocketCam Launches

Pasadena CA (SPX) Aug 03, 2007 - Ten years ago today was the first successful launch of the popular RocketCam video system onboard a Delta II rocket, launching NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft from Florida. The product family is now a globally recognized brand, with a premier customer base in commercial, civil and defense markets. Since 1997, RocketCam systems have been employed successfully on 53 of 53 launches -- 51 onboard rockets as the host platform and 2 onboard spacecraft. During the past decade, RocketCam has evolved from a nice-to-have to must-have capability for many aerospace applications.

Aug 3, 2007
Legacy Reports

Spaceport America Design Team Selected

Las Cruces NM (SPX) Aug 03, 2007 - A team of U.S. and British architects and designers has been recommended for award to design the primary terminal and hangar facility at Spaceport America, announced Kelly O'Donnell, Chair of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA). URS Corporation, one of the world's largest design and engineering firms, teamed with lead designer Foster and Partners of the United Kingdom to submit the winning design. The selection was the result of an international competition for the chance to design the facility that will symbolize the world's first purpose-built commercial spaceport.

Aug 3, 2007