TRULY INTERNATIONAL... Space shuttle Endeavour undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday, and is now scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center in Florida in about 4 hours. During its 16-day flight, Endeavour’s astronauts assembled and installed a giant robot (shown above) that will help the ISS’ crew conduct maintenance activities on the exterior of the outpost without resorting to dangerous spacewalks. The crew also attached the first of two pressurized modules that will make up Japan’s Kibo science laboratory (the main Kibo module is set to launch in May, and a science platform that will be attached to the outside of the lab will hopefully launch early next year). The robot, nicknamed Dextre and built by the Canadian Space Agency, and the Japanese module brings every international partner involved in the $100 billion project onboard. The United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada now have joint real estate orbiting more than 200 miles up in space.



UPDATE: Endeavour touched down at Kennedy Space Center today at 5:39 PM, Pacific Daylight Time.


Images courtesy of NASA / Gary Rothstein

THE 'SHUTTLE SURGE' CONTINUES... About a quarter before 2 AM, Pacific Standard Time today, space shuttle Endeavour arrived at its Kennedy Space Center launch pad, in preparation for its March 10 launch to the International Space Station (ISS). Endeavour will embark on flight STS-123, which involves her crew installing the first section of Japan’s Kibo science laboratory to the orbiting outpost. The main component of Kibo will be launched onboard Discovery on STS-124, now targeted for liftoff in late May. In regards to other science labs at the ISS, Atlantis undocked from the outpost earlier this morning, after her astronauts spent last week installing Europe’s Columbus module to the station. Atlantis will land on Wednesday—either in Florida or at California’s Edwards Air Force Base—to give the U.S. military more time to attempt shooting down an errant spy satellite (which failed shortly after launch in December of 2006, and is expected to enter Earth’s atmosphere sometime next month).


USAF / TSgt. Justin D. Pyle

In commemoration of NASA’s 50th anniversary this year, the U.S. Air Force’s Thunderbirds flew over Endeavour after it arrived at the launch pad. The flyby took place around 7:15 AM, PST today.


NASA - Amanda Diller & Jack Pfaller

ATLANTIS HEADS FOR SPACE... At 11:45 AM, Pacific Standard Time today, the space shuttle Atlantis rocketed away from Florida’s east coast on a journey towards the International Space Station (ISS). Atlantis will dock with the orbital outpost this Saturday, February 9. A day later, astronauts will install the European Space Agency’s Columbus science module to the ISS, where it will stay for the remainder of the station’s life. Columbus is expected to stay in operation for at least 10 years.

Moments before liftoff, CNN reporter Miles O’Brien made an interesting analogy about Atlantis’ launch in his SciTechBlog. He compares the shuttle’s launch to throwing a football:

"If only they could launch now, they (Atlantis’ astronauts) would be on their way. Problem is – the shuttle does not have enough gas to make it to the space station unless it leaves the pad when the station is overhead.

It is kind of like a quarterback throwing a pass to his receiver. If he doesn’t toss the football at just the right moment – the pass will be incomplete – or intercepted.

Think of the shuttle as the football, the station is the receiver, and the launch control team as the quarterback."

Interesting stuff. Atlantis will return to Earth on February 18.


NASA / Sandra Joseph, Tony Gray, Robert Murray

50 YEARS AGO TODAY, the United States launched its very first satellite, Explorer 1, into Earth orbit. It was in response to the Soviet Union launching its Sputnik 1 satellite three months earlier, thus touching off the Space Race. Just thought I’d give you a bit of history as we are now living in the fifth decade of the Space Age. Awesome.


NASA JPL

22 YEARS AGO TODAY... This week marks the anniversaries of three of the lowest points in our nation's manned space program. Rest in peace to the Challenger crew...as well as the Columbia and Apollo 1 astronauts. This Friday marks the 5-year anniversary since the second space shuttle disaster took place. When the shuttle Atlantis launches again on February 7 (hopefully), let's hope it begins a safe and successful round of missions (six in all) to the Hubble Space Telescope and International Space Station this year, so space station assembly can be finished by 2010. After that, we can now focus on heading back to the Moon, and eventually onto Mars...

SpaceShipTwo unveiled... Do you think traveling 60 miles into space will one day cost as much as doing a tandem skydive (usually around $300), or at least a HALO tandem dive (around $3,000)? $200,000—the current asking price by Virgin Galactic, which owns SpaceShipTwo—is a bit out of my price range...for now.




SpaceShipTwo and White Knight II undergoing construction at the Scaled Composites facility:



All images courtesy of Virgin Galactic / Scaled Composites

"Houston, the Altair has landed." Not as catchy as Neil Armstrong’s "Houston, the Eagle has landed" quote back in 1969, but oh well. I think any space aficionado will be grateful if U.S. astronauts are even in the position in 2020 (when Americans are suppose to return to the Moon via the Orion spacecraft) to do a newer take on Armstrong’s memorable line. Almost two weeks ago, NASA announced the new name for its next generation lunar lander: the Altair. Altair is the brightest star in Aquila, the constellation, and is the twelfth brightest celestial object in the night sky...according to NASA folks who work on the Altair project. The logo for Altair was also unveiled (shown above), and pays homage to the patch for the Apollo 11 mission (click here for more info on that). Below is an art concept for the lunar lander itself. The original title for Altair was the Lunar Surface Access Module (LSAM), but here’s hoping Altair becomes a household name faster than LSAM does. That is all.



Images courtesy of NASA

NASA Merges With NASCAR... This satirical article by The Onion is more than 10 years old, but it’s still funny anyway. And for the record, the shuttle’s name is spelled Endeavour, not Endeavor. Oh well. Blame the British (Endeavour was the name of a British ship, commanded by James Cook, more than 200 years ago. Hey, this Blog was nerdy already) for adding a ‘u’ after ‘o’ in words like that, as well as flavour and labour. And spelling theater ‘theatre’ and kilometer ‘kilometre’. Okay, I’m veering waaay off-topic here. Just check out that article.



Courtesy of The Onion

UPDATE (December 9): The reason why the Onion article is relevant right now is because space shuttle Atlantis, which is now scheduled to launch on flight STS-122 in January, is carrying onboard three green starting flags from the Daytona 500. Both NASA and NASCAR's "Great American Race" are celebrating their 50th anniversary next year. Once Atlantis lands after STS-122, one of the green flags will be waved at the beginning of the race in Florida next year, the second flag will be given to the winning Daytona driver, and NASA will keep the third.


NASA

According to NASAWatch.com, presidential candidate Barack Obama stated that his education plan—if he is elected—will involve diverting funds from the Vision for Space Exploration and delay NASA’s Constellation program (which involves developing and launching the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle) for five years. Let’s see... There’s already a projected five-year gap between the retirement of the space shuttle in 2010 and the first manned mission by Orion in 2015... That means the U.S. will be relying on Russia to send our astronauts into space till 2020 (which is when we would have returned humans to the Moon). Do the math, and that’s a 10-year absence where America isn’t gonna have its own manned spacecraft to send its own astronauts into orbit. As an advocate of the space program (in case you didn’t notice from most of the Blogs on this page), this is totally freakin’ unacceptable.

Overlooking Hilary Clinton's presumably positive stance on human spaceflight, I'm probably not gonna vote Democrat in 2008. Additional reasons would be that I wasted my vote on this losing side in 2000 (to the dull, but Nobel Prize-winning vice president) and 2004 (the bunny suit-wearing flip-flopper from Massachusetts). Obama's plan is hypocritical. And foolish. He wants to motivate kids to get more interested in math and science, and yet he wants to cut funding to the one government agency whose work is the epitome of math and science being used to the fullest. Good one, dude. I was thinking about voting for him until I read about this nonsense. Politics piss me off.



UPDATE: Found this interesting tidbit on a message board:

"Just a note on survivability of a program beyond a President's term...ISS (the International Space Station) started under Reagan in 1984 and has survived—albeit not without change and compromise—through four presidencies, ten Congresses (a "congress" officially lasts two years) and 24 attempts to kill it in the Congress along the way. It's just not as simple as an initiative of a single presidential term...which is why the Congress "adopted" it as "national policy" in the 2005 NASA Authorization Act...so it wouldn't be tied to the president alone.

Obama, if elected, could propose diverting funds from Constellation to education, and the Congress could simply tell him "no." They are the ones that ultimately decide where the money goes; the president, whoever he or she is, only requests a budget."

Hm- That makes me feel a whole lot better. If you overlook the fact Congress is currently controlled by the Democrats.

ORION Update: This past week has seen a number of milestones for the Constellation Program...which is responsible for developing NASA’s replacement for the space shuttle after it is retired in 2010: The Ares rocket and Orion space vehicle. On November 9, construction began at Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39B for a trio of lightning towers that will protect the Ares rocket when it is out on the pad during a severe thunderstorm. Ares will begin test flights from Florida in 2009. The launch tower at LC-39B itself will not undergo renovation until late 2008...since it will be used one last time for the space shuttle next year. LC-39B will host a second shuttle (Endeavour) in case it has to launch on a rescue mission if Atlantis (the orbiter assigned to the mission) is found damaged in orbit after launching on next summer’s final Hubble Space Telescope servicing flight. Additional photos of the construction can be found here.


NASA / George Shelton

In other Ares-related news, NASA successfully tested the main parachute for the Ares’ first stage rocket booster during a drop test today at the U.S. Army’s Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. Click here for more details.


NASA / Marshall Spaceflight Center

In New Mexico, workers broke ground on a pad where NASA will test a launch abort system for the Orion spacecraft at the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range. You can read more about it here.


NASA

Damaris Sarria, a NASA engineer widely known for a Blog that is chronicling her exploits to become an astronaut, posted a brief entry on Tuesday talking about a prototype heat shield for Orion being shipped to NASA by Boeing. The shield was constructed at the Boeing facility in Huntington Beach, California. Too bad the actual spacecraft itself won’t be constructed at Huntington Beach...which is only a half-hour drive from me. Oh wait— Orion is being built by Lockheed Martin. Nevermind.


NASA / Damaris B. Sarria