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SATELLITE AND SPACE SHUTTLE NEWS
STS-129 - SMOOTH AS GLASS - A space shuttle mission is an immensely complicated affair and to have a mission with few, if any, issues from start to finish is rare. STS-129 was such a mission. Launched right on time, accomplished everything that it was supposed to and then landed right on scheduled. To slips, scrubs or delays, (outside of the slight delay on the last spacewalk of the mission).
Mission managers William Gerstnmaier, Mike Moses and Mike Leinbach had little to talk about in the post-flight press conference held shortly after Atlantis touched down at NASA's Kennedy Space Center Shuttle-Landing-Facility, (SLF) at 9:44 a.m. EST. More
(Source: Examiner.com
)
JAPAN LAUNCHES 5TH SPY SATELLITE - A Zimbabwe-registered cargo plane crashed shortly after taking off Saturday from a Shanghai airport with seven crew members aboard, state media and witnesses said.
The official Xinhua News Agency reported that four crew members, all foreigners, were injured. The status of the other three was not immediately clear.
China Central Television showed billowing thick black smoke at the scene, with police officers blocking closer access. More
(Source: The Associated Press)
PREPARATIONS UNDERWAY FOR LAUNCH OF INTELSAT 15 SATELLITE - Preparations are moving forward at the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan for the fourth Land Launch mission, the first of a satellite for Intelsat. Liftoff on November 29 is planned at 1:00 pm PT (21:00 GMT), for the Intelsat 15 satellite, at the start of a one-hour launch window. More
(Source: Space Daily)
ATLANTIS LANDS IN FLORIDA - Space shuttle Atlantis landed at Kennedy Space Center, Fla. at 9:44 a.m. EST, winding up the STS-129 mission that included three spacewalks and more than six days at the International Space Station. The orbiter took 14 tons of cargo in its payload bay, including two large carriers with spare parts to sustain station operations after the shuttles are retired next year, to the orbiting laboratory.
Atlantis also brought home Mission Specialist and former Expedition 20 and 21 Flight Engineer Nicole Stott, who spent 87 days on the International Space Station. Her return brings to an end nearly a decade of space shuttle use to rotate crew on the station.
More
(Source: NASA)
ATLANTIS READY FOR LANDING FRIDAY - The STS-129 crew spent its final full day in space Thursday. The crew tested Atlantis’ flight control system, the flaps and rudders that will guide it through the atmosphere, and test fired the thruster jets that control its orientation in space and during early re-entry.
All crew members spent time stowing items in the shuttle’s cabin in preparation for the return to Earth. Landing is scheduled for 9:44 a.m. EST at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. More
(Source: NASA)
THANKSGIVING LAST FULL DAY IN SPACE FOR SHUTTLE - Space shuttle Atlantis' astronauts will spend Thanksgiving checking their ship for the ride home.
The shuttle and its crew of seven are aiming for a Friday morning landing at NASA's Florida spaceport. Good weather is forecast.
The astronauts will test Atlantis' flight systems Thursday morning, take questions from TV reporters and then settle down to a holiday meal. More
(Source: The Associated Press)
ATLANTIS UNDOCKS FROM STATION - Atlantis Undocks from Station
Space shuttle Atlantis and its seven-astronaut crew undocked from the International Space Station at 4:53 a.m. EST. Pilot Barry Wilmore piloted Atlantis during its flyaround of the station.
Tuesday at 10 a.m., European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne handed over command of the station to NASA astronaut Jeff Williams. De Winne and Expedition 21 Flight Engineers Roman Romanenko and Robert Thirsk are scheduled to leave the station for return to Earth in a Soyuz capsule on Nov. 30.
More
(Source: NASA)
WIND SENSOR FAILURE ENDS LONG-LIVED SATELLITE MISSION - A spinning antenna on NASA's QuikSCAT satellite has failed after more than a decade of operations, leaving weather forecasters without a critical tool to measure winds inside distant hurricanes and adding fuel to a political firestorm on a potential replacement. QuikSCAT has been used as an operational resource by meteorologists around the world. It has proven particularly invaluable in gauging the location, size and strength of hurricanes in the open ocean, far from land-based radars and outside the range of reconnaissance aircraft. More
(Source: Space Flight Now)
CREW OF STS-129 - WORK HARD AND PLAY HARD - The crew of STS-129 onboard the space shuttle Atlantis must realize that theirs is a shorter-than-average mission, (STS-129 is scheduled to last only 11days), therefore they are making the most of every second they have available to them. When in the inky black of space the crew hammers out its assignments in record time. When inside, the crew shook off numerous false "depress alarms", (you know those pesky things that are telling you your air is leaking out into space). With the pace of work, the alarms must have seemed like an annoyance to this crew, making one imagine a slightly modified quote from Jesse "The Body' Ventura from the film Predator - "I ain't got time to breathe!" More
(Source: Examiner.com)
LAUNCH OF PROTON ROCKET CARRYING EUROPEAN SATELLITE DELAYED - The launch of a Proton-M carrier rocket bearing the European Eutelsat W7 satellite has been delayed, the Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos said on Monday.
The launch was scheduled for Monday from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan.
"The launch of the European space vehicle has been postponed by the Kazakh side for an indefinite period," Roscosmos said.
The agency also said that the reason for the delay was unclear, as the areas in which the rocket's spent parts would fall into had already been agreed on with Kazakh authorities.
More
(Source: RIA Novosti)
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