Baikonur, Kazahhstan (SPX) Feb 15, 2007 - On February 12, 2007 manned transport space vehicle Soyuz TMA-10 was delivered to Baikonur Cosmodrome for final pre-launch processing and launch operations.
Washington (UPI) Feb 15, 2007 - NASA officials said preparations are on schedule for a Feb. 22 spacewalk despite last Sunday's power outage at the International Space Station. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said ISS commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and flight engineer Mikhail Tyurin will have several conferences with Russian spacewalk specialists during the next few days.
Houston TX (SPX) Feb 14, 2007 - NASA and its international partners have named the crews that will live and work aboard the International Space Station for the next two years. The crew members make up three expeditions to the station and represent four space agencies.
Houston TX (SPX) Feb 14, 2007 - An unexpected circuit breaker trip early Sunday caused a power outage on the International Space Station. All systems were back up by Monday morning with no impact to operations on board. The safety of the Expedition 14 crew and the complex was never an issue.
San Francisco CA (SPX) Feb 14, 2007 - Roger K. Long, MD, an endocrinology research fellow at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco, was one of only three scientists named in January 2007 as 2006-2008 Postdoctoral Fellows by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI).
Cape Canaveral FL (SPX) Feb 14, 2007 - The launch of THEMIS aboard a Delta II rocket has been postponed by 24 hours. The new launch date is now set for Feb. 16. Loading of hypergolic propellants aboard the second stage of the vehicle was unable to be completed on Tuesday. Thunderstorms and severe weather moved into the Cape Canaveral vicinity ahead of an advancing cold front that prevented fueling from continuing.
Cape Canaveral FL (SPX) Feb 14, 2007 - Space Shuttle Atlantis was mated to the orange external tank and twin solid rocket boosters last week. The entire assembly is stacked on the mobile launcher platform and is targeted to roll out to Launch Pad 39A on February 15. The rollout marks the next milestone for Mission STS-117 and will be the first launch from Pad 39A in four years.
Cape Canaveral FL (SPX) Feb 14, 2007 - The launch of THEMIS aboard a Delta II rocket scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 15, has been postponed 24 hours. Loading of hypergolic propellants aboard the second stage of the vehicle was unable to be completed today. Thunderstorms and severe weather moved into the Cape Canaveral vicinity ahead of an advancing cold front that prevented fueling from continuing.
Paris, France (ESA) Feb 14, 2007 - ESA astronaut Leopold Eyharts of France has today been assigned to fly onboard the International Space Station for the delivery and commissioning of the European Columbus laboratory currently planned for this autumn. He will be a member of the Expedition 16 crew to the ISS. He is set to fly there on Space Shuttle (Discovery) mission STS-122 and will return home with the (Endeavour) STS-123 crew some two months later.
Houston, TX (SPX) Feb 13, 2007 - Space suits for astronauts may get a new and better design following a University of Houston doctoral student's locomotion stability research. Melissa Scott-Pandorf is a Fellow of the Texas Space Grant Consortium. NASA's mission to send humans back to the Moon is closer to a reality every day, Scott-Pandorf, a doctoral student in the UH Department of Health and Human Performance, said.
Houston TX (SPX) Feb 13, 2007 - Mission control teams are working to assess systems affected by a power loss aboard the International Space Station early Sunday morning. The station's three crew members were not in any danger, but it did turn an off-duty day into a full work shift. About 1 a.m. EST, one of the power channels of the P4 solar array electrical system went down because of a glitch with a device known as a direct current switching unit. It controls power distribution from the solar array to the battery systems and other hardware.
Fairbanks AK (SPX) Feb 13, 2007 - This morning, a NASA suborbital sounding rocket launched from Poker Flat Research Range into an aurora display over northern Alaska at 3:45 a.m. Alaska Standard Time, allowing researchers to gather more data about the power source behind pulsating auroras. Marc Lessard of the physics department at the University of New Hampshire was the principle investigator for the experiment to investigate various aspects of pulsating aurora.
Tokyo (AFP) Feb 13, 2007 - Veteran astronaut Koichi Wakata was named Tuesday as the first Japanese to stay long-term in space, and said he hoped to bring ramen noodles to the International Space Station. Wakata, 43, will be carried by a US space shuttle in the fall of 2008 and stay on the International Space Station for about three months to work with US and Russian astronauts, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said.
Moscow (RIA Novosti) Feb 13, 2007 - The completion of a laboratory module for the International Space Station depends on financing, but it should be ready for launch in 2009, the head of the Khrunichev State Space Scientific Production Center said Monday. Vladimir Nesterov said the Moscow-based center has completed 65-70% of the multipurpose module's construction, which was designed to develop research, functional and other opportunities of the Russian segment of the ISS and is expected to be launched in 2009 by the Proton booster.
Shanghai (Xinhua) Feb 13, 2007 - A special type of sweet purple potato, grown from seeds once aboard China's second manned spacecraft, could be a must-choose item for young couples here on Valentine's Day. The new type of sweet potato, developed from seeds that mutated in outer space, has a much deeper purple color than previous generations, according to the Haikou Purple Orchid, the grower, in China's southernmost Hainan Province.
Kirtland AFB NM (AFNS) Feb 12, 2007 - Current deployment mechanisms operating aboard spacecraft primarily consist of heavy springs which, when activated, inflict shock to components such as solar arrays and antennae. This often hinders the equipment's efficiency in the harsh environment of space. Air Force Materiel Command's Space Vehicles Directorate and Composite Technology Development have developed a technology that could put a halt to the not-so-good vibrations.
