NASA

House goes with Senate on NASA funding bill

The House of Representatives voted late Wednesday to accept the Senate's version of NASA's $19 billion fiscal 2011 budget proposal, which would provide money for an additional shuttle flight, kick-start development of a new heavy-lift booster for deep-space exploration, and fund the development of commercial manned spacecraft for trips to and from low-Earth orbit.

With no amendments allowed, the vote was 304 in favor and 118 against.

"This is a great night for our nation's space program," Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, said in a statement. "This bill is a blueprint for how … Read more

Six-month mission ends with Soyuz landing

Running one day late, a Russian Soyuz capsule carried two Russian cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut back to Earth early Saturday, the final chapter in an action-packed six-month mission aboard the International Space Station.

Dropping through a clear sky under a huge orange-and-white parachute, the charred Soyuz descent module landed upright and on target near the town of Arkalyk at 1:23 a.m. EDT (11:23 a.m. local time).

"And the search and recovery forces now report the Soyuz TMA-18 has landed," said Rob Navias, mission control commentator at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"… Read more

Docking system malfunction delays Soyuz crew return

Delayed more than three hours while troubleshooting problems with the docking mechanism holding a Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station, Russian flight controllers called off an attempt to bring three crew members back to Earth Friday pending additional work to resolve the malfunction.

The unprecedented glitch with the normally reliable docking mechanism means outgoing station commander Alexander Skvortsov, flight engineer Mikhail Kornienko, and NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson will have to spend at least one and possibly two more days in orbit.

It was not clear what caused a lack of response with hooks on the space station side … Read more

Shuttle Discovery hauled to launch pad for final flight

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.--The shuttle Discovery, mounted atop a mobile launch platform carried by an Apollo-era crawler transporter, was hauled to the launch pad last night for work to ready the ship for blastoff November 1 on its 39th and final flight.

The 3.2-mile trip from the Vehicle Assembly Building to launch complex 39A began at 7:23 p.m. EDT and was completed at 1:49 a.m. Tuesday when the mobile launch platform was reported "hard down" on its support pedestals at the oceanside pad. With good weather expected, engineers delayed rolling a protective … Read more

NASA names crew for possible final shuttle mission

Four veteran astronauts were named Tuesday to train for a rescue flight aboard the shuttle Atlantis if the crew of NASA's final currently planned mission, scheduled for launch in February, gets stranded in orbit. If not, and if Congress approves funding, NASA hopes to launch the crew for real next June on a final flight to deliver spare parts and supplies to the International Space Station.

But it is not yet clear when differences between the House and Senate versions of NASA's fiscal year 2011 budget will be resolved or when a decision will be made about whether … Read more

Shuttle Discovery takes first step toward final flight

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.--Running a day late because of a ruptured water main, the shuttle Discovery was hauled from its processing hangar to the Vehicle Assembly Building Thursday for attachment to an external tank and twin solid-fuel boosters. If all goes well, the orbiter will be moved to launch pad 39A on September 21, setting the stage for launch November 1 on a space station resupply mission.

It will be the shuttle program's 133rd flight and the 39th and final voyage of Discovery before NASA's oldest shuttle is retired and put on public display, most likely at … Read more

Alliant Techsystems test-fires second upgraded booster

Locked in a massive horizontal test fixture near Promontory, Utah, a huge five-segment solid-fuel booster roared to life with a torrent of flame Tuesday, generating some 3.6 million pounds of thrust in a ground-shaking $75 million test of a rocket the Obama administration wants to cancel.

With engineers and spectators looking on from a safe distance, Alliant Techsystems' Development Motor No. 2, or DM-2, ignited at 8:27 a.m. PDT, blasting out a 600-foot-long jet of 5,600-degree flame and billowing clouds of exhaust as it consumed 1.3 million pounds of solid propellant.

Unlike the first five-segment … Read more

NASA spacecraft spots multiplanet solar system

NASA's Kepler spacecraft, hunting for distant worlds by measuring the slight dimming of starlight as planets pass in front of their parent suns, has found its first multiplanet solar system, researchers announced Thursday.

The Kepler-9 system includes two Saturn-class worlds orbiting in gravitational lockstep close to their star and a possible third planet just a bit larger than Earth that whirls through a hellish "year" in just 1.8 days.

The announcement came just a few days after a European team, using a different technique with a ground-based telescope, revealed the discovery of a solar system with … Read more

$2 billion ISS experiment delivered for shuttle launch

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.--A $2 billion, 7.5-ton physics experiment bound for the International Space Station aboard the last planned shuttle flight in February arrived at the Florida launch site Thursday after a busy summer of work to replace the magnet at the heart of the costly particle detector.

With Nobel laureate Samuel Ting, the lead scientist of the AMS project looking on with shuttle commander Mark Kelly and his crew, an Air Force C-5 transport jet taxied to a stop at the Shuttle Landing Facility after a flight from Geneva where the payload was assembled and tested.

If … Read more