NASA - Shuttles Come Nose-to-Nose

NASA's space shuttles Endeavour and Atlantis switched locations today at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and in the process came "nose-to-nose" for the last time in front of Orbiter Processing Facility 3.

Endeavour was moved from Orbiter Processing Facility 2 to the Vehicle Assembly Building where it will be housed temporarily until its targeted departure from Kennedy atop the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft in mid-September. 

After a stop at the Los Angeles International Airport, Endeavour will move in mid-October to the California Science Center for permanent public display.

Now in the processing facility after leaving the Vehicle Assembly Building, shuttle Atlantis will undergo preparations for its move to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in November, with a grand opening planned for July 2013.

Image credit: NASA

Space Pumpkin artist: NASA Worker's Halloween Tradition

STS-114 Halloween pumpkin carved by Liz Warren.

CREDIT: Liz Warren

Houston, we have a space pumpkin.

Each year NASA worker Liz Warren carves a unique jack-o-lantern to mark a very space-y Halloween for flight controllers at NASA's Johnson Space Center and this year is no different.

Warren describes the motivation behind her gourd-gouging Halloween tradition.

"This year, I carved a Halloween pumpkin of the mission patch for the International Space Station's Expedition 29. I’m proud to report that it’s sitting in Mission Control on the flight director's desk this week."

"The satisfaction I get from transforming a pumpkin into a space mission emblem pumpkin is tremendous. Space exploration is an extremely challenging and stressful endeavour."

"I like to think that my pumpkins bring a moment of levity and a smile to the astronaut crews and the teams that support them."

NASA MARS Rover: Opportunity Approaching Endeavour Crater

This image from the navigation camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows the view ahead on the day before the rover reached the rim of Endeavour crater.

It was taken during the 2,680th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars.

It is one of 309 images included in a video record of Opportunity's three-year journey of more than 13 miles (21 kilometers) to reach Endeavour from its last previous major destination, Victoria crater.

› See video

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

While NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity was traveling from Victoria crater to Endeavour crater, between September 2008 and August 2011, the rover team took an end-of-drive image on each Martian day that included a drive.

A new video compiles these 309 images, providing an historic record of the three-year trek that totaled about 13 miles (21 kilometers) across a Martian plain pocked with smaller craters.

The video featuring the end-of-drive images is now available online, at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=114782241 .

It shows the rim of Endeavour becoming visible on the horizon partway through the journey and growing larger as Opportunity neared that goal. The drive included detours, as Opportunity went around large expanses of treacherous terrain along the way.

The rover team also produced a sound track for the video, using each drive day's data from Opportunity's accelerometers. The low-frequency data has been sped up 1,000 times to yield audible frequencies.

"The sound represents the vibrations of the rover while moving on the surface of Mars," said Paolo Bellutta, a rover planner at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., who has plotted many of Opportunity's drives and coordinated production of the video.

"When the sound is louder, the rover was moving on bedrock. When the sound is softer, the rover was moving on sand."

Opportunity and its rover twin, Spirit, completed their three-month prime missions on Mars in April 2004. Both rovers continued for years of bonus, extended missions.

Both have made important discoveries about wet environments on ancient Mars that may have been favorable for supporting microbial life. Spirit stopped communicating in 2010.

Opportunity continues its work at Endeavour. NASA will launch the next-generation Mars rover, car-size Curiosity, this autumn, for arrival at Mars' Gale crater in August 2012.

HiRISE: Iazu Crater

With Opportunity's arrival to the rim of Endeavour Crater, we prepare for our science activities by using HiRISE to perform a reconnaissance of the surrounding craters.

Not far to the south of Endeavour Crater lies Iazu Crater. The crater walls, which are better exposed than those of Endeavour,may provide a regional context for Opportunity's studies.

While it is in no way guaranteed that Opportunity will ever travel to Iazu Crater, the secrets revealed by taking this image may provide insight into the stratigraphy and structure of Endeavour Crater and help define the scientific campaign of Opportunity at Endeavour.

NASA MARS Rover Opportunity: 'Ridout' Rock on Rim of Odyssey Crater

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity looked across a small crater on the rim of a much larger crater to capture this raw image from its panoramic camera during the rover's 2,685th Martian day, or sol, of work on Mars (Aug. 13, 2011).

Opportunity had arrived at the western rim of 13-mile-diameter (21-kilometer-diameter) Endeavour crater four days earlier.

A portion of the northeastern rim of Endeavour forms the distant horizon in this view.

A crater about 66 feet (20 meters) in diameter is on the Endeavour rim near Opportunity's arrival point. From a position south of Odyssey, this view is dominated by a rock informally named "Ridout" on the northeastern rim of Odyssey. The rock is roughly the same size as the rover, which is 4.9 feet (1.5 meters) long.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/ASU

NASA - 'Ridout' Rock on Rim of Odyssey Crater

NASA MARS Rover Opportunity: View of the Rim of Endeavour

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity used its panoramic camera to capture this view of Endeavour Crater's rim after a drive during the rover's 2,676th Martian day, or sol, of working on Mars (Aug. 4, 2011).

The drive covered 396 feet (120.7 meters) and put the rover with about that much distance to go before reaching the chosen arrival site at the rim, called 'Spirit Point.'

Endeavour Crater has been the rover team's destination for Opportunity since the rover finished exploring Victoria crater in August 2008. Endeavour, with a diameter of about 14 miles (22 kilometers), offers access to older geological deposits than any Opportunity has seen before.

This view looks toward a portion of the rim south of Spirit Point, including terrain that Opportunity may explore in the future.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/ASU

NASA Shuttle Atlantis STS-132 Mission

Once Atlantis returns to Earth, only two scheduled missions remain, both of them still angling to pin down their departure dates. Discovery is tentatively slated to lift off on Sept. 16 on an eight-day flight to the ISS that will deliver an Italian Multi-Purpose Logistics Module upgraded as a permanent supply compartment.

Endeavour, recently bumped to a tentative Nov. 27 launch date from late July, will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, an external observatory with 16 national sponsors for the study of cosmic rays and space particles.

For that final 10-day mission, Atlantis will be reprocessed and outfitted with an external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters to serve as a launch-on-need rescue mission for Endeavour’s six-man crew.

NASA has been discussing an as-yet-unscheduled Atlantis launch on a final supply mission to the station after Endeavour flies, with as few as four crew, who would wait out a Soyuz rescue on the station if their ship were crippled by launch debris or a malfunction.

Shannon characterises the prospect as remote, although Mike Suffredini, NASA’s space station program manager, says he would welcome a visit from Atlantis with a cargo of research equipment and spare parts for the station’s water recovery system in the summer of 2011.

Expectations have dimmed that a pair of yet-to-be-tested commercial cargo launch services will begin deliveries to the station next year.

NASA Shuttle Endeavour Prepares for next flight

At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, work platforms are moved into position around space shuttle Endeavour in Orbiter Processing Facility-2, following its touchdown at the completion of the STS-130 mission to the International Space Station on Feb. 21.

Processing now begins for Endeavour's next flight, STS-134. The six-member STS-134 crew will deliver the Express Logistics Carrier 3 and the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the International Space Station, as well as a variety of spare parts including two S-band communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank, additional spare parts for Dextre and micrometeoroid debris shields. STS-134 will be the 35th shuttle mission to the station and the 133rd flight in the shuttle program. Launch is targeted for July 29.

Image Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

The International Space Station together with Space Shuttle Endeavour visible from Europe

The conditions in northern Europe are set for nice views of the ISS as it passes overhead up to four times a night this coming weekend. All you need is the timetable and a clear sky.

The International Space Station together with Space Shuttle Endeavour docked to it is so bright that spotting them with the naked eye is not at all difficult, provided you know where and when to look.

The ISS orbits Earth every 92 minutes only about 400 km above our heads and tilted about 52 degrees in relation to the equator. When the position of the Station is projected onto a conventional map of the world, it moves in a curve from south to north. The ISS passes over most regions on Earth every day, in some places several times a day.


For most locations in Europe the ISS can be seen easily only when the northern points of the orbit happen to coincide with good lighting conditions and night time. This is the case right now: the ISS enjoys very good visibility from the northern parts of Europe.

Normally the best time for ISS-gazing is just before dawn or just after sunset, when the observer is in the dark but the ISS is lit by the Sun. When visible, ISS is one of the brightest objects in the night sky, making it fairly easy to spot from when it rises above the horizon in a westerly direction until it sets towards the east.

How about photographing ISS as it glides through the night sky? Send your best images via twitpics to @esa or by email esabuzz@gmail.com

NASA Shuttle Endeavour Crew snaps ISS

With the Earth in the background, the International Space Station is seen in this image photographed by an STS-130 crew member from aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour

Picture: REUTERS / NASA

NASA Space Shuttle Endeavour undergoes inspection by crew

Astronauts on the US space shuttle Endeavour on Tuesday finished routine inspection of the thermal protection system on the orbiter's wing leading edges and nose, NASA said.

The crew soared into orbit Monday carrying an observation deck for the International Space Station, a seven-windowed dome offering breathtaking views.

On much of their first day working in space, Commander George Zamka, Pilot Terry Virts and Mission Specialists Kay Hire, Stephen Robinson, Nicholas Patrick and Robert Behnken inspected heat-resistant tiles and reinforced carbon-carbon surfaces on those high friction areas.

"Zamka, Hire and Patrick used the shuttle's arm and its Orbital Boom Sensor System extension to survey Endeavour's right wing. Subsequently, Virts and Robinson joined the commander for the nose cap survey. Hire replaced Zamka for the port wing survey," NASA said.

The crew was looking for any sign of being hit by ice, and for foam insulation damage that in the past has plagued the external fuel tank. Images were beamed back to mission control in Houston, Texas, to be analyzed.

Some small bits of foam did break off two minutes after launch but apparently without harming the shuttle, Bill Gerstenmaeir, who is in charge of NASA space operations, said late Monday.

In addition to the heat tile inspection, which took about seven hours, the shuttle crew readied for its rendezvous with the ISS. Docking is scheduled for just after midnight 0506 GMT Wednesday.

The NASA Space Shuttle Endeavour pre-docking manouvre video

NASA Shuttle Endeavour Night Launch: HD Video

NASA Shuttle Endeavour Night Launch

The US space shuttle has made its final night launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The Endeavour orbiter soared into the Florida sky on a 13-day mission to the International Space Station.

It will be the final night launch for Nasa which plans just four further shuttle missions after this one, all in daylight hours.

For further information on the Shuttle Endeavour, click here ....

Parking on Mars

Now where did I park my Mars rover?
It says here 'Pluto 3'!!