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Engineers plan to load the shuttle Endeavour's external tank with rocket fuel July 1 to test vent line fixes intended to stop, or at least reduce, gaseous hydrogen leaks that grounded the shuttle June 13 and 17, NASA officials said Wednesday. If the repairs work, the agency will press ahead with a third attempt to launch Endeavour on a space station assembly mission July 11.

A different sort of problem has cropped up for the shuttle Atlantis, just back from a successful mission to overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope. Sources say engineers recently discovered an astronaut work light attachment knob lodged between the inner pressure pane of cockpit window No. 5 and the back of an instrument panel housing.

The knob, used to mount a light on a bracket much like the knob on a tripod holds a camera, floated into a hard-to-see corner of the window area during the mission, when the crew cabin was pressurized to 14.7 pounds per square inch. It apparently got stuck between the inner window pane and the instrument panel housing when Atlantis returned to Earth and the cabin structure shrank slightly.

The knob is now firmly lodged against the inner pressure pane of window No. 5, the sources said. Because of uncertainty about whether the pane has been damaged, the knob must be removed--and the pane confirmed to be structurally sound--before Atlantis can fly again in November.… Read more

Dr. Kiki from This Week in Science joins us to talk tech and science, and we realize that we will all soon wear solar-powered Gundam suits and travel the Earth. That is until they become self-aware and eject us and kill us all. We also take NASA to task and tell you when to get a new Windows PC.

HTC Hero running Android and Sense UI http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/24/htc-hero-details-begin-leaking-from-htcs-own-website/

China not backing off despite filter code post … Read more

Four-and-a-half days after launch, NASA's $504 million Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter fired its main thrusters for 40 minutes early Tuesday, successfully braking into an initially elliptical orbit around the moon.

The critical rocket firing began around 5:47 a.m. EDT and ended as planned at 6:27 a.m., putting the spacecraft into an orbit tilted 30 degrees from the moon's poles with a low point of 136 miles and a high point of 1,926 miles.

"All stations, this is flight," said lead flight director Rick Saylor. "Congratulations on a successful LOI (lunar orbit … Read more

A slight misalignment in the way a vent port on the shuttle Endeavour's external tank was built into the structure is the leading candidate for what caused gaseous hydrogen leaks that derailed two launch attempts June 13 and 17, the shuttle program manager said Friday.

The use of a different type of seal where the vent line attaches to the side of the external tank may resolve the problem, he said. The alternative seal design should provide a tighter fit that is less susceptible to the temperature-induced mechanical shrinkage and motion that can put uneven stress on the interface … Read more

An Atlas 5 rocket thundered to life and streaked into space Thursday, hurling two NASA spacecraft toward the moon for a $583 million mission to scout out landing sites for future manned missions and to search for evidence of hidden ice near its frigid poles.

One spacecraft will map the cratered surface from a perilously low 31-mile-high orbit while the other will blast out 350 tons of pulverized rock and soil for chemical analysis, digging a shallow 66-foot-wide crater in a kamikaze crash visible from Earth.

"First, we want to identify safe landing sites," said project scientist Rich … Read more

A date has been set for the Britain's high court to consider whether self-confessed NASA hacker Gary McKinnon should be tried in the U.K.

Lord Justice Stanley Burnton and Justice Alan Wilkie will hear on July 14 the London resident's application for a judicial review, McKinnon's solicitor, Karen Todner, told ZDNet UK on Tuesday.

McKinnon, accused by U.S. prosecutors of the "biggest military hack of all time" back in 2001, is pursuing a judicial review of a decision by the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute him in the U.K. Prosecution in … Read more

After a lengthy fueling delay because of stormy weather, launch of the shuttle Endeavour on a space station mission was scrubbed Wednesday when a presumably repaired hydrogen vent line umbilical began leaking potentially dangerous vapor for the second launch try in a row.

Given the apparent severity of the problem and the planned launch of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on Thursday or Friday atop an Atlas 5 rocket, Endeavour will be grounded until at least July 11 when the next shuttle/space station launch window opens.

"We've got to step back and try to understand this problem, … Read more

NASA managers Monday formally cleared the shuttle Endeavour for a delayed launch Wednesday on a space station assembly mission. Launch of the agency's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter atop an unmanned Atlas 5 rocket was delayed to Thursday or Friday to make room for the shuttle in an effort to maximize launch opportunities for both missions.

Endeavour was grounded Saturday when a gaseous hydrogen vent line umbilical seal leaked potentially dangerous vapor during fueling. Engineers replaced the seal and while the schedule is tight, NASA managers decided Monday to retarget the shuttle for launch at 5:40:50 a.m. EDT … Read more

NASA managers Sunday deferred making a formal decision on whether to reschedule the delayed shuttle Endeavour for launch Wednesday or press ahead instead with launch of the agency's $583 million Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission aboard an unmanned Atlas 5 rocket.

But with both missions facing tight launch windows, Mission Management Team Chairman LeRoy Cain said the agency's preference was to launch Endeavour on Wednesday, if possible, to maximize the number of launch opportunities for both programs.

"If shuttle goes first on the 17th, then the most opportunities we can give LRO is two, and that would be … Read more