Washington DC (AFP) Jun 15, 2007 - Astronauts at the International Space Station prepared for a third space walk Friday to repair torn space shuttle insulation, amid problems with computers controling the ISS's oxygen supply and orbital position.
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jun 14, 2007 - NASA's Space Station team has a new problem on its hands with the failure of critical computer systems supporting critical parts of the Russian station modules. The failure leaves the station dependent on US systems including gyroscopes, and Shuttle Atlantis which is currently docked to the station in support of shuttle mission STS-117. ISS program manager Mike Suffredini has told reporters that the computer failures could in the worst case senario force the crew to leave.
Moscow (RIA Novosti) Jun 14, 2007 - The launch of a U.S. telecommunications satellite, DirecTV-10, on board a Russian Proton-M carrier rocket has been scheduled for July 7, a leading Russian space company said Wednesday. The DirecTV-10 is a commercial telecommunications satellite designed and manufactured by Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems to provide consumers across continental United States, Hawaii, and Alaska with local and national High Definition Television (HDTV).
Cape Canaveral FL (SPX) Jun 13, 2007 - Marc Rayman who is helping oversee the Dawn launch campaign team at KSC has told SpaceDaily.com. The report of a worker falling [on the Dawn spacecraft] is wrong; I don't know how such a rumor even got started. A tool made inadvertent contact with the back of the solar array (i.e., the side without solar cells). There is no reason to expect this to have an effect on our plans to launch on July 7.
Paris (AFP) June 13, 2007 - Getting a closer look at the stars may soon stop being the privilege of a few select billionaires, with the space arm of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company saying Wednesday it plans to have a space tourist plane in operation by 2012. The vessel, which EADS plans to start developing next year, would provide tourists with a 90-minute suborbital flight, including three minutes of weightlessness at an altitude of more than 100 kilometres (62 miles), Francois Auque, the president of EADS Astrium, told reporters.
Washington (AFP) June 13, 2007 - Two Atlantis shuttle astronauts went Wednesday on a second space walk of four planned for the mission, to retract a solar array aboard the International Space Station, NASA said. Pat Forrester and Steve Swanson emerged from the airlock of the International Space Station (ISS) decompression chamber at 1828 GMT. The astronauts worked 90 minutes on a 73-meter (240-foot) solar array on the starboard side of the ISS, fluffing it, NASA said, to ease full retraction on Thursday.
Houston TX (SPX) Jun 13, 2007 - If one part of your car isn't properly maintained, it can affect how the entire vehicle runs - especially if you're taking a long trip. The same can be said for the human body. That's why, when it comes to fitness in space, it's important to create a program addressing the whole system, parts included. To keep astronauts healthy on long missions, researchers with the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) are developing an integrated exercise program that addresses a number of the physical changes caused by microgravity.
Washington (AFP) June 12, 2007 - NASA has added two days to the shuttle Atlantis's mission so that astronauts can repair a damaged thermal blanket on the vessel's exterior, the US space agency said late Monday. The decision to add a fourth space walk to the Atlantis crew's schedule to fix the thermal blanket will mean a mission of 13 days in space rather than the originally planned 11 days, said John Shannon, head of the mission management team at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Paris (AFP) June 12, 2007 - Pioneering and poetic -- or borderline macabre, according to your view -- burials in space seem set for a rosy future. Since the cremated remains of Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the TV sci-fi series Star Trek, rocketed into the cosmos a decade ago, the ashes of more than 300 other deceased have followed suit. They include Clyde Tombaugh, the astronomer who discovered Pluto, US astronaut Gordon Cooper, Star Trek actor James Doohan and comet-spotter Eugene Shoemaker, whose ashes were buried on the Moon.
Washington (AFP) June 11, 2007 - Astronauts of the US shuttle Atlantis started the first space walk of their mission Monday to begin installing power-generating equipment on the International Space Station hundreds of miles above the Earth. Two of the crew, mission specialists John Danny Olivas and Jim Reilly, emerged from an airlock on the station at 2002 GMT in the first of three planned space walks, according to the US space agency NASA's television broadcast.
Austin TX (SPX) Jun 11, 2007 - Vignette's Next-Generation Web solutions are helping NASA engineers and scientists connect and share information online, as the federal agency designs its next generation of space vehicles for the Constellation Program. The Constellation Program is responsible for developing crew exploration and launch vehicles that will send humans back to the moon and then to Mars.
Washington (AFP) Jun 11, 2007 - The US shuttle Atlantis docked with the International Space Station Sunday, performing a dramatic backward somersault in space before locking on, in its mission to deliver equipment and a new crew member. Shuttle commander Rick Sturckow confirmed the successful docking to mission controllers in Houston, Texas in a broadcast by the space agency NASA, after a nearly 48-hour voyage from Earth.
London UK (SPX) Jun 11, 2007 - Robotic surgery may be coming to your town. Robots that perform surgery can be driven by surgeons who no longer stand by the patient, but direct the operation from a computer console. In most cases the surgeon is seated at a console within the theatre, only a few metres away from the patient.
Vulcan (AFP) Canada, June 10, 2007 - A Klingon is an unexpected sight in Canada's vast western plains, among the lonely oil wells, cow pastures and wheat fields. But hundreds of the ferocious warriors from Gene Roddenberry's fictional Star Trek universe gathered here this weekend for the town's annual Spock Days and Galaxyfest -- a three-day space festival and Star Trek convention. It's escapism, said Canada's head Klingon QelIv Satir, also known as Paul Carreau of Calgary, wearing a studded leather uniform and frightening makeup that takes up to two hours to put on.
Cape Canaveral FL (SPX) Jun 09, 2007 - Final preparations were under way Friday for the launch of the space shuttle Atlantis for the first mission of the year, with weather conditions looking good for a blastoff to the International Space Station. The seven shuttle astronauts -- all American men -- arrived at the launchpad in the afternoon dressed in their orange survival suits and began boarding the shuttle, which is scheduled to take off at 7:38 pm (2338 GMT).
Sunnyvale CA (SPX) Jun 08, 2007 - The third of four pairs of massive solar arrays and a second Solar Alpha Rotary Joint (SARJ), built by Lockheed Martin at its Space Systems facility in Sunnyvale, will be launched aboard the space shuttle Atlantis to the International Space Station (ISS) as early as June 8, 2007. During the 11-day STS-117 mission, astronauts will connect the package of giant solar arrays and the rotary joint - incorporated into an integrated truss segment - to the Station.
