Columbia Countdown Begins
NASA began the countdown on Monday for the upcoming launch the space shuttle Columbia on a mission to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope. If all goes well, Columbia will lift off from the Kennedy Space Center on February 28 at 1148 GMT (6:48am EST). Over the course of the 11-day mission, astronauts will carry out five scheduled spacewalks to install new hardware, including a new camera, solar wings, a power-control unit, and steering mechanism. Forecasters are expecting a 70% chance that the weather will be good enough for launch.
Recent Posts
We Understand Rotating Black Holes Even Less Than We Thought
The theory of black holes has several mathematical oddities. Recent research shows our understanding of…
Habitable Worlds are Found in Safe Places
When we think of exoplanets that may be able to support life, we hone in…
New Glenn Booster Moves to Launch Complex 36
Nine years ago, Blue Origin revealed the plans for their New Glenn rocket, a heavy-lift…
How Many Additional Exoplanets are in Known Systems?
NASA's TESS mission has turned up thousands of exoplanet candidates in almost as many different…
Hubble and Webb are the Dream Team. Don't Break Them Up
Many people think of the James Webb Space Telescope as a sort of Hubble 2.…
Scientists Have Figured out why Martian Soil is so Crusty
On November 26th, 2018, NASA's Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport (InSight)…