NASA REPAIRING LEAK ON SPACE SHUTTLE FUEL TANK - NASA is repairing a leaky hydrogen gas line on Endeavour's fuel tank in hopes of possibly launching the space shuttle on Wednesday. The leak forced mission managers to call off a launch attempt Saturday. The repair work began Sunday and should be completed in time for Endeavour to lift off Wednesday on the space station construction mission. But that's the same day a pair of science spacecraft are scheduled to blast off for the moon.    More
(Source: Associated Press - Jun 15)

NASA TO LAUNCH 2 SPACECRAFT TO THE MOON - The moon will drift into NASA's cross hairs again Wednesday as the space agency prepares to launch two new spacecraft to search for the best places for humans to land when they return as early as 2020. One of the two will crash its rocket booster into a polar crater, then fly through the debris plume to scan for water ice. The second, conceived and built in Maryland, will orbit the moon for at least a year. Its goal is to find safe landing sites with the water and sunshine needed to help sustain a permanent manned base.    More
(Source: Baltimore Sun - Jun 15)

ENDEAVOUR SHUTTLE LAUNCH DELAYED - The launch of space shuttle Endeavour has been cancelled due to a hydrogen leak, Nasa officials have announced. Endeavour was due to take off from Cape Canaveral with seven astronauts at 0717 local time (1117 GMT), but launch was cancelled several hours beforehand. The problem was discovered during fuelling, before the astronauts had donned their spacesuits. The shuttle was to deliver equipment for space experiments, as well as drop off a new station crew member.    More
(Source: BBC News - Jun 13)

‘UNANIMOUS GO’ FOR A SHUTTLE LIFTOFF SATURDAY - Just a month after the successful repair and renovation of the Hubble Space Telescope, another ambitious space shuttle mission is set to lift off Saturday morning. Forecasters said there was a 90 percent chance of favorable weather for the launching of the Endeavour, scheduled for 7:17 a.m. Eastern time from the Kennedy Space Center, and mission managers said the countdown was proceeding smoothly.    More
(Source: New York Times - Jun 12)

NASA COUNTS DOWN TOWARD SATURDAY SHUTTLE LAUNCH - NASA began counting down Wednesday toward the weekend launch of space shuttle Endeavour, on track for a space station construction mission. Forecasters put the odds of good launch weather Saturday morning at 90 percent. The flight comes less than three weeks after NASA's last shuttle trip involving the successful overhaul of the Hubble Space Telescope. The highlight of this 16-day mission will be the completion of a huge Japanese lab. Endeavour was on standby as a rescue ship throughout the Hubble mission. Severe thunderstorms prevented NASA from moving Endeavour from one pad to the other on time and, in fact, kept the Hubble crew from landing in Florida.    More
(Source: The Associated Press - Jun 11)

TRACKERS OF ORBITING JUNK SOUND WARNING - Space is a mess. There are 19,000 pieces of debris larger than a softball orbiting the Earth. They travel at about 17,000 miles per hour, fast enough for a relatively small piece of junk to destroy a satellite or even the space shuttle. There are 300,000 pieces of debris the size of a marble or larger, according to Paul Graziani, chief executive of Analytical Graphics, Exton, Pa., a maker of software for the space and defense industries.    More
(Source: Defense News - Jun 11)

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN 'PICOSATELLITE' TO BE LAUNCHED FROM SPACE SHUTTLE - In an initial step toward the first successful rendezvous and docking of very small satellites without human control, a pair of miniature "picosatellites" built by University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University engineering students will be launched into orbit this month from Space Shuttle Endeavour. In the process, the students will try to accomplish what only multi-million-dollar space missions have attempted: the autonomous docking and rendezvous of satellites. In this case, they'll be using picosatellites, named for being very compact and lightweight.    More
(Source: University of Texas News - Jun 10)

TERRESTAR-1 DELAYS LAUNCH TO TEST S-BAND PAYLOAD - TerreStar Networks Inc. has pushed the launch of the TerreStar-1 satellite from late June into early July to perform further testing of the S-band payload, the company announced June 8. The launch aboard an Ariane 5 rocket has been scheduled for June 24, but TerreStar requested “additional time to ensure that an on-orbit anomaly that occurred recently on another operator's satellite has no bearing on the flight worthiness of TerreStar-1,” the company said.    More
(Source: Satellite Today - Jun 10)

PLANCK SATELLITE MANEUVER AIMS AT L2 ARRIVAL - Beginning June 5, ESA's Planck satellite will carry out a critical mid-course manoeuver that will place the satellite on its final trajectory for arrival at L2, the second Lagrange point of the Sun-Earth system, early in July. The manoeuvre is scheduled to begin at 19:28 CEST on 5 June 2009, and will last for up to 30 hours.   More
(Source: Science Daily - Jun 6)

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