Universe Today

Moon Crash Will Also Help Fulfill Geologist’s Last Wish

Killed in a car crash in Australia in 1997, Gene Shoemaker – co-discoverer of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet – will have his ashes scattered on the moon when the Lunar Prospector crashes in search of water later this week.

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Cosmonauts Perform Final Mir Spacewalk

Mir cosmonauts spent nearly 6 hours outside the battered spacestation installing equipment, and unfolding an antenna. The cosmonauts tested the potential of the antenna, and then disposed of it in space. They’ll return on August 28th, after which the station will probably remain vacant until it crashes back to Earth in early 2000.

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NASA Confirms Columbia’s Fuel Leak

With the Space Shuttle Columbia safely on the ground, NASA engineers have had the opportunity to examine the fuel leak. After an inspection, they’ve confirmed three tiny holes in one of the shuttle’s engine nozzles. Although it didn’t cause any damage, NASA engineers confirmed that it was a little too close for comfort.

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New Extrasolar Planet Discovered Around Iota Horologii

Astronomers have discovered the newest extrasolar planet orbiting a sunlike star in Iota Horologii. Twice the size of Jupiter, but with a similar orbit to the Earth, the planet was discovered by the European Southern Observatory in Chile.

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Safe Landing for Space Shuttle Columbia

After an extremely short mission to deploy the Chandra X-Ray observatory, the Space Shuttle Columbia returned safely to Earth piloted by Eileen Collins – the first woman ever to land a shuttle. Columbia had been in space for five days.

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NASA Could Suffer Drastic Budget Cuts

A House subcommittee has approved a 10% cut of NASA’s annual budget. If this goes through, Administrator Daniel Goldin suggests it will result in mass layoffs, the closure of 2-3 centers, and delay the deployment of the space station.

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NASA Considers Future of Space Travel

Robert Frisbee, at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is working on future generations of spacecraft that will help cross interstellar space, including such exotic technologies as antimatter, fusion and solar-sails.

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Study Reveals Less Asteroids Than Previously Thought

At a recent press conference, NASA’s David Rabinowitz said that revised estimates of NEOs (Near Earth Objects) are 50% less than previously thought – with only 500 to 1,000 objects. However, he also went on to mention that we’re due for a damaging collision within the next century.

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Prospector Could be Disabled by Eclipse

Final plans for the Lunar Prospector spacecraft may run into a little snag. NASA was planning on smashing the probe into the moon in search of ice; however, there’s a possibility the upcoming eclipse may damage the spacecraft. It will spend 3 days flying into and out of the Earth’s shadow, and this may damage sensitive electronics on the probe – which is already near the end of its life.

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Fuel Leak Endangered Shuttle Launch

Although it successfully made it into orbit, the Space Shuttle Columbia developed a fuel leak shortly after launch. A previously unreleased video shows a streak of ignited fuel developing from one of the shuttle’s main engines. If the leak had progressed any further, it could have cause an emergency landing of the shuttle.

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Latest Launch Helps Globalstar Become Operational

The latest Globalstar launch on a Delta 2 put another 4 telecommunications satellites into orbit, and bringing the total number to 32. This is an important milestone for the company as it’s the minimum number of satellites needed for the system to offer global telephone service to its customers. Globalstar still plans to launch another 16 “birds” by the end of the year.

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Deep Space 1 Prepares for Asteroid Pass

Launched nine months ago, Deep Space 1 is being prepared for a flyby of Asteroid 1999 KD – renamed to Asteroid Braille. The spacecraft will fly within 9 miles of the asteroid, taking images, and sending them back to Earth.

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Chandra Successfully Deployed from Columbia

Space Shuttle Columbia has completed its primary mission – to deploy and launch the Chandra X-Ray observatory. Once it was separated from the shuttle, Chandra fired its upper stage booster to carry it to a higher 25-hour orbit. Chandra will be 10-100 times more powerful than any other X-Ray telescope.

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Mir and Columbia Crews Communicate in Space

Although they were 7,700 miles apart, Columbia astronauts and Mir cosmonauts spent a few minutes today catching up on old times. The chat was between two Frenchmen: Michel Tognini on Columbia and Jean-Pierre Haignere on Mir, but shuttle commander Eileen Collins broke in to speak a few words to the Mir commander.

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Mir Spacewalkers Search for Leak Unsuccessful

Russian cosmonauts spent six fruitless hours in space attempting to find the source of a mysterious air leak on board Mir. Deputy flight director Viktor Blagov has informed reporters that the leak is above the allowable limit, and that the process is not developing for the better. If the leak isn’t found and fixed, the station will be uninhabitable within 3 months.

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Nearby Asteroid Considered a Stepping Stone to Space Colonization

When it passed within 500,000 miles of the Earth last year, astronomers had the opportunity to study asteroid 1998 KY26. They found it spins rapidly, but more importantly, the asteroid is loaded with ice – probably a million gallons worth. This makes the asteroid a nearby “oasis” for space colonization.

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Columbia Launches Successfully After the Third Attempt

After delays from bad weather, and a falsely detected hydrogen leak, the Space Shuttle Columbia finally launched early Friday morning from Cape Canaveral. If the shuttle hadn’t been able to launch on this attempt, it would have been grounded for at least an additional month. This shuttle mission will last 5 days.

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New Asteroid Danger Rating Developed

New research indicates that asteroids pass very close to the Earth on a regular basis. To help provide a common measurement for assessing the risk of impact, Richard Binzel from MIT has developed the Torino Impact Hazard Scale. A zero on the scale indicates no risk of impact, while a 10 forecasts global devastation.

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Moon Crash May Find Concrete, Not Water

As NASA prepares for the Lunar Prospector’s final mission – to slam into the moon in the hopes that its crash will dig up hidden ice – two researchers at Stanford University, Von R. Eshleman and George A. Parks believe that it may just crash into a concrete-like material. We’ll all find out in a week or so when Prospector crashes.

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Columbia Launch Aborted For the Second Time

Bad weather at Cape Canaveral scrubbed the launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia for the second time. Thunderstorms surrounded the launch facility, and the director held the countdown at the five-minute mark throughout their entire window of opportunity, but eventually the launch was called off. They’ll try again on Friday.

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Hawking Working On a Theory for “Everything”

Physicist Stephen Hawking has been working for the last 20 years on the string theory as a unified explanation for all matter and energy for the universe. And he admits that the progress is going a little slower than he would have hoped at a recent conference in Germany.

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New NASA Mission will Capture the Solar Winds

Genesis is a new NASA Mission to recover particles of the solar wind. Expected to cost $216 million, the spacecraft will launch in January 2001, orbit the sun several times collecting solar particles, and finally return to Earth in 2003.

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New Photos of Mars Cause Controversy

New images of the Red Planet, taken by the Mars Global Surveyor, show an amazing diversity of features – including frost-covered sand dunes, water ice clouds and heavily eroded craters. Debates center around water: is it on the surface and how could it sustain life?

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Shuttle Launch Aborted at Last Second

Everything was ready to go, but a hydrogen leak detected in the last few seconds caused NASA to abort the launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia. It turned to be a false alarm, and the shuttle is being prepared for another window on Thursday.

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Pluto Contains Natural Gas

Pluto has been found to contain deposits of frozen natural gas, in large deposits on the surface of the planet. Composed of ethane, a simple hydrocarbon, the gas was discovered using the newly commissioned Japanese Subaru telescope in Hawaii.

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Grissom’s Capsule Brought to the Surface

Gus Grissom’s Liberty Bell capsule, sitting at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, was finally raised to the surface by the salvage team today. The team was plagued by delays, including storms, malfunctioning equipment, and navigational problems, but the recovery was timed almost perfectly with the 30th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon.

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Kazakhstan Wants More Control Over Launches

The recent launch mishap at the Baikonur cosmodrome gave the Kazakh government the opportunity to flex its political muscles. Now it wants to be more involved in the launch process, and plans are in place to negotiate a tougher deal with Russia that gives Kazakhstan more control over launches, as well as a larger share in the profits.

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Shuttle Ready for Historic Launch on Apollo 11’s 30th Anniversary

Space Shuttle Columbia sits ready on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral for its historic launch on Tuesday. Carrying the space-based Chandra X-Ray observatory, and led by NASA’s first female commander, the launch marks the 30th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11. The shuttle will launch shortly after midnight and remain in space for 5 days.

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United Nations Believes All Countries Should Profit From Space Exploration

Nations from around the world are meeting at the third annual UN Conference on the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, UNISPACE III. The purpose of the conference will be to discuss how to make space flight accessible to developing nations, as well as how to deal with increasing space junk.

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Friends and Colleagues Pay Tribute to Conrad

Pete Conrad, the third man to walk on the moon, was buried in Arlington National Cemetery on Monday. Conrad died in a motorcycle crash while driving along a winding road in Southern California. Several astronauts attended the funeral, including Neil Armstrong, James Lovell, and John Glenn.

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Astronauts Get Sick from Space Station Atmosphere

Although it wasn’t widely publicized by NASA, a recent report published to NASA Watch said that several members of the last space shuttle Discovery mission came down with symptoms of “sick building syndrome”, including headaches, irritated eyes, flush face, nausea and vomiting.

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Progress Supply Ship Docks with Mir

Russia was finally able to successfully launch the Progress supply ship to restock Mir for its final days. The launch was in jeopardy because of a launch ban by the Kazakhstan government at the Baikonur cosmodrome after a rocket mishap with a Russian satellite. Progress docked with Mir early Sunday.

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Chandra Launch Only Days Away

The Chandra X-Ray observatory is only days away from joining the Hubble Space Telescope – outside the obscuring atmosphere of the Earth. Chandra will launch on the Space Shuttle Columbia, the first US space mission ever commanded by a woman, Lt. Col. Eileen Collins.

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Apollo 11’s 30th Anniversary Approaches

The 30th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon will be on July 20th. Many space-related websites are paying tribute to this achievement with special reports, and reprints of 30-year old articles.

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Launch Ban Ends, Zenit Launches from Baikonur

Now that the Kazakhstan government have lifted the ban on rocket launches from the Baikonur cosmodrome, it should be business as usual again. After the Progress launch on Friday, a Ukrainian Zenit 2 booster carried an Okean-o remote sensing satellite into orbit early Saturday.

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Merging Galaxies Found by Hubble

Recent images caught by the Hubble Space Telescope show more than a dozen distant galaxies merging together. The galaxies are 8 billion light-years away, and the merging process will take less than a billion years.

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New Evidence Refutes Antigravity

Recent observations that exploding stars in distant galaxies seemed fainter than expected suggested that the expansion of the Universe was speeding up – caused by a mysterious force called antigravity. But astronomers from the University of California at Berkley have recently refuted these conclusions.

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Mir Prepared to Be Abandoned

It appears that the current Mir crew will be its last. When the cosmonauts leave the station on August 23rd, the 130-ton station will be readied for its final, fiery descent. Although the Mir’s final days are nearing, the station has survived almost three times as long as its original mission.

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Boeing Plans New Experimental Plane

NASA and Boeing have announced plans to build a new experimental space plane, called the X-37, which will serve as a test bed for a range of technologies, including flight at Mach 25 while demonstrating aircraft-like operations.

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