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AMATEUR astronomers are enjoying a cat-and-mouse game with the US military in keeping track of its secret space plane, the X-37B.
The Buzz Aldrin Portal to Science & Space Exploration is on iTunes and the iPhone App store! http://buzzaldrin.com/community/buzzs-iphone-app/
Fyodor Yurchikhin will command the Russian spacecraft, while NASA's Shannon Walker will act as Soyuz Flight Engineer. Doug Wheelock rounds out the crew as FE-2. Wheelock will command Expedition 25 in September. The trio will launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome on a 2-day flight which will arrive at the ISS on Thursday, joining Expedition 24 commander Alexander Skvortsov, cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko and American astronaut Tracy Caldwell-Dyson. Liftoff is scheduled for 5:35PM EDT today (that's 2135 GMT Tuesday, 3:35AM Wednesday local time). Play-by-play at Spaceflight Now. Watch live on NASA TV. NASA has begun to wind down construction of the rockets and spacecraft that were to have taken astronauts back to the Moon — effectively dismantling the US human spaceflight program despite a congressional ban on its doing so. Legislators have accused President Obama’s Administration of contriving to slip the termination of the Constellation program through the back door to avoid a battle on Capitol Hill. The first flight of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is now being targeted for no earlier than Friday, June 4 2010. The window for the test flight remains 1 p.m. to 5 p.m [see update below - TonyF]. Once the final approvals are given and related documentation is completed, the California-based company will be cleared to launch the Falcon 9 from Launch Complex 40 at the Air Force base.
UPDATE 2: Launch delayed, no new time - window extends to 3PM EDT. Check our Twitter for updates. May 28 In Space History:585 BC (going waaaaay back): The "Battle of the Eclipse" ended a war between two ancient nations because a solar eclipse caused the warring factions to believe that their gods wanted an end to the hostilities. Since eclipses can be calculated for past and future dates, this is one of the earliest historical events for which the precise date is known. (Thanks Wikipedia) 1959 (ok, back to AD): Able and Miss Baker, the first "space monkeys" to return from space alive, were launched and recovered unscathed after a 9-minute suborbital flight in the nosecone of a Jupiter MRBM. Go primates! (Thanks @SpacemensLuck) 1962: The USSR launches the Kosmos 5 satellite, which spent a year in orbit on a scientific research and testing mission. 1964: NASA launches Saturn 6, an unmanned test of the Saturn I rocket which would evolve into the launchers to carry astronauts to Earth orbit and to the Moon. (Thanks Mark Wade) 2002: Scientists working on the Mars Odyssey orbiter program announce that large quantities of water ice were detected beneath the surface of Mars. (Thanks @airandspace) Look for hashtag #TISH on our Twitter feed for more Today In Space History! "Space Shuttle Atlantis now comes home to the Kennedy Space Center for the final time. Twenty-five years, thirty-two flights and more than 120 million miles traveled - the legacy of Atlantis now in the history books". "We'll... turn this incredible machine over to the ground teams to put her back in the barn for a little bit". Atlantis and her six-man crew have come home to KSC's Runway 33, after traveling 4,879,978 miles on what is scheduled to be her last mission. NASA reports:
Live coverage at SpaceVidCast. Live video at SFN and Florida Today. Discussion at Nasaspaceflight. Pics and video at KSC. More clips at Space Multimedia. Check the links at right for play-by-play and NASA TV. A spacewalking astronaut freed a snagged cable on the inspection boom for shuttle Atlantis on Wednesday, accomplishing the job in a matter of minutes and earning a "superhero" title.
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UPDATE: Launch window opens at 
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