News From Space!

Happy Halloween! Here are some spooky space images from APOD - Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The Hubble Space Telescope is back up and running after ground controllers were able to switch over to the Side B Control Unit/Scientific Data Formatter (CU/SDF). The CU/SDF is an onboard computer for storing, formatting and transmitting Hubble science data to the ground. The primary (Side A) CU/SDF unit failed on September 27. Shuttle Atlantis was scheduled to rendezvous with Hubble to perform the last of its five Servicing Missions, but NASA did not want to perform all the other repairs and leave Hubble without a backup computer. The task of swapping out the failed CU/SDF was added to the mission, which pushed the launch date to February 2009, but now the unit won’t be ready until April.

Space shuttle Atlantis rolled back to the VAB on October 20, and it will be de-stacked from its current launch configuration. Endeavour will launch next, on a flight to prepare the International Space Station for a six-person crew. Liftoff of STS-126 is scheduled for November 14. NASA reports:

NASA Managers Delay Hubble Servicing Mission

Oct. 30, 2008 - 7:30 p.m. EDT
NASA managers have announced that they will not meet a possible February 2009 launch time for the fifth and final shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. The decision comes after engineers completed assessments of the work needed to get a second data handling unit for the telescope ready to fly. The unit will replace one that failed on Hubble in late September, causing the agency to postpone the servicing mission, which had been targeted for Oct. 14.

“We now have done enough analysis of all the things that need to happen with the flight spare unit to know that we cannot be ready for a February launch,” said NASA’s Astrophysics Division Director Jon Morse at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The February date was an initial estimate, assuming minimal hardware preparations and test durations that are no longer viewed as realistic. We’ve communicated our assessment to the Space Shuttle Program so it can adjust near-term plans. We will work closely with the Shuttle Program to develop details for a new launch opportunity.”

Gerstenmaier said during a news conference Thursday they would unbolt Atlantis from its launch stack and return it to its processing hangar. Atlantis is the shuttle that will be used in servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble managers say they expect to deliver a replacement data handling unit to Kennedy in April 2009. The exact new target launch date for the Hubble mission is under review.

Additional Resources
› News Release
› Servicing Mission 4 News
› STS-125 Site

Preflight pics are up at the JSC Gallery. More preflight pics and video at KSC. Discussion here. Check the links at right for play-by-play and NASA TV.

Three space voyagers have landed safely in Kazakhstan this morning. Two of the Expedition 17 crew of the International Space Station, along with “space tourist” Richard Gariott, returned to Earth in their Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft. No ballistic re-entry this time! Greg Chamitoff remains aboard the ISS as part of Expedition 18. He will come home in November aboard Endeavour.  NASA reports:

Expedition 17 Crew Lands in Kazakhstan

Image above: Sergei Volkov, Expedition 17 commander, relaxes outside the Soyuz TMA-12 capsule after landing in Kazakhstan. Image credit: NASA TV

Commander Sergei Volkov and Flight Engineer Oleg Kononenko of the 17th International Space Station crew landed on the steppes of Kazakhstan at 11:37 p.m. EDT Thursday after more than six months days in space.

All three people aboard the Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft were reported to be in good condition after their re-entry and landing.

A Russian recovery team and NASA personnel reached the landing site by helicopter shortly after the Soyuz touched down. They helped the crew members into reclining chairs for medical tests and set up a medical tent nearby.

With Volkov and Kononenko was spaceflight participant Richard Garriott. He launched to the station Oct. 12 with the Expedition 18 crew, Commander Mike Fincke and Flight Engineer Yury Lonchakov, under contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency.

Astronaut Gregory Chamitoff came to the station aboard Discovery on its STS-124 mission, launched May 31. He served for the last part of Expedition 17 as a flight engineer. He remains aboard the station as a member of the Expedition 18 crew.

Expedition 17 crew members undocked their Soyuz spacecraft from the station at 8:16 p.m. Thursday. The deorbit burn to slow the Soyuz and begin its descent toward the Earth took place at 10:45 a.m.

When they landed, Volkov and Kononenko had spent 199 days in space on their Expedition 17 flight, 197 of them on the station.

Volkov, 35, a lieutenant in the Russian air force, returned from his first spaceflight. Kononenko, a spacecraft design engineer, also completed his first spaceflight.

+ Read more about Expedition 18
+ Read more about Expedition 17
+ View crew timelines

News video here. Expedition 17 pics are up at the JSC Gallery. Video clips here. Discussion here. News resources here. Check the links at right for play-by-play and NASA TV.

The American military is planning a “spaceplane” designed to fly a crack squad of heavily armed Marines to trouble spots anywhere in the world within four hours.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,440622,00.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4969025.ece

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hot_Eagle

With Atlantis’ launch delayed due to recent trouble on the Hubble Space Telescope, the Shuttle will be rolled back to the VAB until the expanded flight lifts off next year.  NASA reports:

Atlantis Getting Ready to Roll

Oct. 17, 2008
Space shuttle Atlantis will begin its slow move back to the Vehicle Assembly Building about 7 a.m. Monday, clearing the way for Endeavour to move to Launch Pad 39A on Oct. 25.

Workers will spend the weekend making final preparations on Atlantis for its rollback. Atlantis was placed on Launch Pad 39A in August for a mission to service and upgrade NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. That mission was postponed when Hubble developed a problem in space with its scientific data transmission system.

Image above: The payload canister carrying the equipment for the postponed STS-125 mission is taken past the Vehicle Assembly Building on its way back to its processing bay. The payload was removed from space shuttle Atlantis before the shuttle is taken back to the Vehicle Assembly Building. Image credit: NASA/Jim Grossman
› View Hi-res Image
› Submit your comments on STS-126

Atlantis will be kept in its launch configuration inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida while NASA managers prepare to fly the Hubble mission next year.

In the meantime, Endeavour, which was stationed on Launch Pad 39B, is going to launch from Launch Pad 39A so modification work can resume on the 39B complex to host the Ares I-X test flight in 2009.

Endeavour is being prepared to fly mission STS-126 to the International Space Station. The shuttle will take equipment to the orbiting laboratory so it can double its resident crew size from three to six.

The astronauts who will fly Endeavour to the station ended their work week by practicing rendezvous maneuvers and reviewing the spacewalks planned for the mission at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Launch of STS-126 is targeted for Nov. 14 at 7:55 p.m. EST.

Preflight pics are up at the JSC Gallery. More preflight pics and video at KSC. Discussion here. Check the links at right for play-by-play and NASA TV.

The Russian Soyuz spacecraft, with the next Space Station crew aboard, has docked with the ISS. Joining them is computer game mogul Richard Garriott, who will be returning home next week with the departing Expedition 17 crew. His dad is Skylab and Shuttle veteran Owen Garriott. Richard isn’t the first guy to follow his father’s footsteps into space, though - that would be Sergei Volkov (son of Alexander) who is in charge of the ISS now. NASA reports:

Expedition 18 Crew Docks with Space Station

Image above: The crew members of Expeditions 17 and 18 participate in an interview aboard the International Space Station. Image credit: NASA TV

Commander Edward Michael “Mike” Fincke and Flight Engineer Yury Valentinovich Lonchakov of the 18th International Space Station crew docked their Soyuz TMA-13 to the Earth-facing port of the Zarya module at 4:26 a.m. EDT Tuesday.

Hatches between the two spacecraft were opened at 5:55 a.m. A welcome ceremony and a safety briefing for the new arrivals followed.

The new crew launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 3:01 a.m. EDT Sunday to begin a six-month stay in space.

With Fincke, an Air Force colonel, and Lonchakov, a colonel in the Russian Air Force, is spaceflight participant Richard Garriott, flying under contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency.

Garriott will return to Earth with Expedition 17 crew members, Commander Sergei Volkov and Flight Engineer Oleg Kononenko, in their Soyuz TMA-12 on Oct. 23. Expedition 17 launched to the station April 8.

Aboard the station to welcome Expedition 18 crew members was the Expedition 17 crew, including astronaut Gregory E. Chamitoff. He launched to the station on the STS-124 mission of Discovery May 31. He joined Expedition 17 in progress and will provide Expedition 18 with an experienced flight engineer for the first part of its increment.

Fincke, 41, is making his second long-duration flight on the station. He is a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and holds master’s degrees from Stanford University and the University of Houston, Clear Lake.

He served as an Air Force flight test engineer. He was selected by NASA in 1996. He was commander of the second NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO 2), working seven days on the seafloor off Florida in May 2002. He served as a flight engineer on station Expedition 9 from April to October 2004.

Lonchakov, 43, is a graduate of the Orenburg Air Force Pilot School and the Zhukovski Air Force Academy. He is a class 1 air force pilot. He has more than 1,400 hours of flight time. He also is a paratroop training instructor with 526 jumps.

He was selected as a test cosmonaut candidate in late 1997. He has flown two previous space missions, STS-100 to the station in April 2001 and a Soyuz delivery flight to the station in October and November 2002.

Astronaut Sandra H. Magnus is scheduled to fly to the station on STS-126 to replace Chamitoff as a flight engineer on E18. Magnus, 43, will be replaced near the end of Expedition 18 by Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, who will launch on Discovery on the STS-119 mission. Magnus holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics from the University of Missouri-Rolla and a Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology.

She was selected as an astronaut in 1996. Magnus will be making her second spaceflight. She flew as a mission specialist on STS-112 in October 2002.

News video here. Expedition 18 pics are up at the JSC Gallery. Video clips here. Discussion here. News resources here. Check the links at right for play-by-play and NASA TV.