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RSS NASA STS-130 Mission Updates

  • Discovery on Tap for Rollout to Pad
  • Discovery Being Prepped for Rollout
  • Two Shuttles, Two Crews on the Move
  • Two Shuttles, Two Crews on the Move
  • Endeavour and Discovery do Shuttle Shuffle
  • Mission Managers Praise Flawless Mission
  • Endeavour Astronauts Head Back to Crew Quarters
  • Endeavour's Final Checkout
  • Astronauts Depart Endeavour
  • Crew Transport Vehicle in Place

Today In Space History: America Joins The Space Race

By TonyF on 31 January 2009 at 1:10PM

Huntsville Times: America In Space - 50th Anniversary. Click for photo gallery.January 31st marks the 51st anniversary of the launch of Explorer 1, America's first satellite. The flight, on 31 Jan 1958, came almost 4 months after the Soviet launch of the world's first satellite, Sputnik 1, and followed a failed U.S. attempt to launch a different satellite called Vanguard.

JPL's Explorer 1 was launched by a U.S. Army Redstone booster (AKA Juno I) from Cape Canaveral's Pad 26, and was America's entry into the space race. It first detected the Van Allen radiation belts that surround the Earth. The spacecraft orbited our planet until it burned up in the atmosphere in 1970.

The Soviets may have been first, but with Explorer's success, the Space Race was on! What will the next 50 years bring?

Category: Earth, History, Unmanned Exploration | Comments are closed

Today In Space History: Challenger Disaster

By TonyF on 28 January 2009 at 10:50AM

STS-51L Mission Patch. NASA image.Today marks the 23rd anniversary of a terrible tragedy in the history of the Space Program: The Challenger disaster. On 28 January 1986, 7 astronauts lost their lives when Shuttle Challenger exploded just 73 seconds after launch. Mission Fact sheet here; Crew info here; Video here; Image collections here and here.

Mission STS-51L was the 25th Shuttle flight, and it carried the first "Teacher In Space", Christa McAuliffe. The Challenger, (OV-99), was the second orbiter built, and had completed 9 successful missions (starting with STS-6 in 1983) before the awful incident, which was caused by O-rings in the right solid rocket booster becoming brittle in the winter cold.

The accident rocked the nation and became embedded in the minds of an entire generation. The remains of some crewmembers were buried with honors at Arlington National Cemetery, and the wreckage of the spacecraft is sealed in a missile silo at Cape Canaveral. NASA grounded the Shuttle program for more than two years while safety improvements were made.

The Challenger Learning Centers, dedicated to space science education, were founded in honor of the crew. Remember the brave men and women of Challenger, Apollo 1, and Columbia!

Category: History, Shuttle, TISH, US | Comments are closed

Today In Space History: Apollo 1 Fire

By TonyF on 27 January 2009 at 1:57AM

Flowers and plaque at the KSC Astronaut Memorial. NASA PHOTO NO: KSC-07PD-0174January 27th marks the 42nd anniversary of a tragic day in the race for the moon: the Apollo 1 fire. On 27 Jan 1967, three astronauts lost their lives on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral during a test procedure in preparation for what would have been the first mission in the lunar program. Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee perished when a spark ignited the pure-oxygen atmosphere of the Apollo Command Module at Pad 34. Crew info here; Image collections here and here. The loss of AS-204 caused a delay of nearly two years in the Apollo program, resulting in many changes to the spacecraft design.

Life Magazine photo from the Grissom burialIn December 1997, nearly 31 years after the accident, President Clinton posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to Chaffee and White. Grissom's was among the first medals awarded in October 1978 by President Carter.

This week will see remembrances of the three tragedies whose anniversaries fall so closely on the calendar: Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia. Never forget the heroes of space exploration!

Category: Apollo, History, TISH | One comment

Challenges Loom as Obama Seeks Space Weapons Ban

By Rick on 26 January 2009 at 2:29PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's pledge to seek a worldwide ban on weapons in space marks a dramatic shift in U.S. policy while posing the tricky issue of defining whether a satellite can be a weapon.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE50O15X20090125

Category: MilSpace, Space Politics, US | Leave a comment