Noel Hinners, former NASA scientist, dies at 78

Noel Hinners, a former chief scientist for NASA who helped plan the scientific exploration of the moon for the Apollo program and later oversaw projects such as the Mars Surveyor Program, has died.

Hinners' brother Bill Hinners said Saturday that Hinners died Friday after battling a brain tumor. He was 78.

Hinners began his meteoric space career in 1963 by helping plan the lunar exploration and was just 33 when Apollo 11 landed on the moon.

He worked on the Apollo program until 1972, when he became the space agency's director of lunar programs.

He later served as the director of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington and the director of the Goddard Space Flight Center. He retired from NASA as its third-ranking executive.

English planetary scientist Colin Pillinger dies aged 70

English planetary scientist Colin Pillinger, best known for his 2003 attempt to land a spacecraft on Mars, has died aged 70, his family have said.

Prof Pillinger was at his home in Cambridge when he suffered a brain haemorrhage and fell into a deep coma.

His family said he later died at Addenbrooke's Hospital, England, without regaining consciousness.

His death was "devastating and unbelievably sad", they said in a statement.

'Unfinished business'
The space scientist built a probe to search for Martian life, naming it Beagle 2 after Charles Darwin's HMS Beagle.

It was the first time an individual researcher had sent their own vessel into space.

The spacecraft vanished without trace but Prof Pillinger carried on pushing space agencies to complete what he called "unfinished business on Mars".

Fans took to Twitter to pay tribute to the scientist, with author Keith Mansfield calling him a "great advocate" for space and Mars.

Phil Ford, a writer on Dr Who, said: "Very sad to see Prof Colin Pillinger has died. A proper British boffin who will be fondly remembered for the Beagle Mars mission."

At the age of 62 Prof Pillinger was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which left him finding it difficult to walk.

He said the illness would not diminish his efforts to land a British craft on Mars.

A professor in interplanetary science at the Open University, he headed the university's Department of Physical Sciences until 2005.

He was awarded a CBE in 2003 and had asteroid 15614 named after him a year later, 2004.

"A piece of Professor Pillinger now moves between Mars and Jupiter," a Nasa scientist said at the time.

Prof Pillinger was married to Judith with whom he had two children, Shusanah and Nicolas.

Hubble Space Telescope designer Bruce Woodgate dies

This colourful collection of Hubble Space Telescope images of portion of the Monkey Head Nebula reveals a collection of carved knots of gas and dust silhouetted against glowing gas. 

The cloud is sculpted by ultraviolet light eating into the cool hydrogen gas. 

Credit: NASA, ESA, HUBBLE HERITAGE TEAM (STSCI/AURA)

Bruce Woodgate

Bruce Woodgate, the principal investigator for the Hubble space telescope camera that has helped scientists discover black holes and supernovas has died, NASA officials confirmed Thursday.

Woodgate died earlier this week after suffering several strokes in the past month.

A nearly 40-year NASA veteran, Woodgate was most well known for overseeing the design and development of the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS).

The STIS was added to the Hubble space telescope in 1997.

"He was a good guy, and what I always thought a scientist should be: Curious, inquisitive, willing to try to figure out if something made sense (and willing to stick his neck out if it was anywhere near the borderline of possibility), and fascinated by the amazing and varied science his camera made possible," Phil Plait wrote in Slate. Plait worked on the STIS with Woodgate in late 1990s.

Phil Plait

The STIS's key feature is its imaging spectrograph, which allowed scientists to examine and measure an extensive range of light wavelengths.

The use of spectrograph was halted in 2004 after a power supply failure but it was later repaired in 2009.

With this technology, the STIS has been a game changer in astronomy research.

Scientists have discovered supermassive black holes, merging "antennae galaxies," and planets around other stars using STIS.

It has also detected an exoplanet's exosphere and the invisible high-speed collision around supernova 1987a.

In addition to STIS, Woodgate was developing a photon-counting UV detector using the latest in solid-state physics and nano-fabrication techniques.

Woodgate was a recipient of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center's Award of Merit and the NASA's Distinguished Service Medal.

Dale Gardner, Jetpack-Flying Astronaut Who Salvaged Satellites, Dies at 65

NASA astronaut Dale Gardner holds up a "For Sale" sign in a nod to the malfunctioning satellites he and Joe Allen salvaged during space shuttle Discovery's STS-51A mission in 1984. Gardner, 65, died on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2014.

Credit: NASA

NASA astronaut Dale Gardner, who in 1984 achieved the world's first space salvage during his second shuttle mission, died on Wednesday (Feb. 19). He was 65.

Dale Gardner made history becoming the last of six astronauts to use the manned maneuvering unit (MMU) jetpack as he worked to return two malfunctioning satellites to Earth.

He died Wednesday from a sudden brain aneurysm. News of his passing was shared via social media on Thursday, with the Association of Space Explorers and the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida noting his death.

One of the so-called "Thirty-Five New Guys" (or "TFNG") who NASA recruited in 1978 to train for its then-new space shuttle, Gardner flew twice as a mission specialist aboard the orbiters Challenger and Discovery in August 1983 and November 1984, respectively.

Gardner's first spaceflight blazed a new path through the black sky as the first shuttle mission to launch and land at night.

The six-day STS-8 mission, which marked the third flight of space shuttle Challenger, deployed INSAT-1-B, a communications and weather satellite for India, while also testing the orbiter's robotic arm and, in a first, the space-to-ground communications using a new Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS).

Gardner's STS-8 crewmates included commander Richard Truly, who had piloted the shuttle's second test flight, pilot Dan Brandenstein, and fellow mission specialists William Thornton and Guy Bluford, the latter being the first African American in space.

It was only the second mission to fly with a crew of five, the largest contingent launched aboard a spacecraft at the time.

Gardner returned to space with the second flight of shuttle Discovery as a member of the STS-51A crew.

The eight-day mission first launched two Canadian communication satellites and then, in a move that made history, retrieved two malfunctioning satellites for their return to Earth.

The Wester 6 satellite for Western Union and Indonesian Palpa B2 satellite were deployed on a previous shuttle flight but had failed to reach their proper orbits due to failed motors.

As commander Frederick Hauck, pilot David Walker, and mission specialist Anna Fisher looked on from inside, Joe Allen and Gardner embarked on a pair of spacewalks to capture and secure the wayward satellites.

The twice-done feat, which required the spacewalkers to manually hold the satellites in the orbiter's payload bay, included Allen, and then Gardner donning the MMU jetpack, marking the last times to date that astronauts would fly untethered through open space.

On the successful completion of their salvage work and in a humorous nod to the malfunctioning satellites, Gardner revealed a hand-drawn "For Sale" sign, posing for a photo that would become one of the most iconic shots of the 30-year space shuttle program.

Landing Nov. 16, 1984, Gardner logged a two-mission total of 14 days and 52 minutes orbiting the Earth, including 12 hours and 14 minutes performing two spacewalks.

Dale Allan Gardner was born Nov. 8, 1948, in Fairmount, Minnesota, but was raised in Clinton, Iowa. Graduating in 1970 from the University of Illinois, Gardner entered active duty in the United States Navy and was assigned to flight officer training in Florida and Georgia.

Soyuz cosmonaut Valery Kubasov dies at 79

Soviet cosmonaut Valery Kubasov is seen floating in space during the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project first joint American-Soviet mission. Kubsaov died on Feb. 19, 2014.

Credit: NASA

Soviet cosmonaut Valery Kubasov, who took part in the first docking of a US Apollo spacecraft with a Soviet Soyuz, has died aged 79, the Russian spacecraft corporation said Thursday.

Valery Kubasov was one of two crewmembers of the Soyuz 19 spacecraft that docked with the US Apollo spacecraft on July 17, 1975, marking both a technical breakthrough and a rare relaxation in Cold War tensions.

He died suddenly on Wednesday after a short illness, the Russian space corporation RKK Energiya said in a statement on its website.

Alexei Leonov

The historic docking saw Soyuz commander Alexei Leonov shake hands with American astronaut Thomas Stafford, a gesture that was watched on television around the world.

Leonov said that when the US astronauts crossed into the hatch, they saw an inscription from Shakespeare: "Brave new world that has such people in it." The teams then worked together for two days.

Four original crewmembers including Kubasov, who was the flight engineer, met in Moscow in 2010 to mark the 35th anniversary of the docking.

Kubasov recalled that the US crewmembers had surprised the Soviet cosmonauts by connecting them by radio with US President Gerald Ford who spoke to both of them, Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily reported.

The docking of the two crafts tested out pioneering technology that paved the way for the International Space Station.

Kubasov was twice decorated as a Hero of the Soviet Union, the country's top honour.

After training at Moscow's aviation institute, he began working as an engineer involved in spaceship construction before becoming a cosmonaut in 1966.

On his first space flight in 1969, he was the first ever to experiment with welding in open space. The Soyuz mission was his second space flight.

His third and last space flight was a 1980 mission to a Soviet orbital space station, Salyut 6.

Kubasov was a "strong personality, a man out of the ordinary," said the RKK Energiya statement.

He was a "brave instructor, cosmonaut and test pilot who made a significant contribution to studying space and learning the secrets of the Universe."

Valery Kubasov was married to Lyudmila Kurovskaya, with whom he had a daughter, Ekaterina, and son, Dmitry.

Read more about Valery Kubasov here

Former NASA astronaut and Test Pilot C. Gordon Fullerton dies

NASA says former space shuttle astronaut and test pilot C. Gordon Fullerton has died at age 76.

A NASA statement says Fullerton died Wednesday after spending most of the past 3 ½ years in a care facility in Lancaster, Calif., following a stroke in 2009.

Fullerton spent 382 hours in space on two space shuttle missions during his career as an astronaut from 1969 to 1986.

He was also a member of one of two crews that flew the shuttle prototype Enterprise on approach and landing tests in 1977.

Fullerton later spent 22 years as a test pilot on projects at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base.

The Portland, Ore., native joined the Air Force in 1958 and flew fighters and bombers before becoming a test pilot.

Sally Ride - First US Woman in Space Dies

Sally Ride, who blazed trails into orbit as the first American woman in space, has died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 61.

Ride died at her home in the San Diego suburb of La Jolla, said Terry McEntee, a spokeswoman for her company, Sally Ride Science.

She was a private person and the details of her illness were kept to just a few people, she said. Ride rode into space on the shuttle Challenger in 1983 when she was 32.

After her flight, more than 42 other American women flew in space, Nasa said. "Sally was a national hero and a powerful role model. She inspired generations of young girls to reach for the stars," president Barack Obama said.

"People around the world still recognise her name as the first American woman in space, and she took that title seriously even after departing Nasa," Eileen Collins, the first female space shuttle commander, said. "She never sought media attention for herself, but rather focused on doing her normally outstanding job."

When Ride first launched into space, feminist icons such as Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda were at Kennedy Space Centre and many wore T-shirts alluding to the pop song with the refrain of the same name: "Ride, Sally Ride."

Nasa administrator Charles Bolden, a former astronaut, said Ride "broke barriers with grace and professionalism - and literally changed the face of America's space programme".

He added: "The nation has lost one of its finest leaders, teachers and explorers." Ride was a physicist, writer of five science books for children and president of her own company.

She had also been a professor of physics at the University of California in San Diego. She was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1978, beating out five women to be the first American female in space.

Her first flight came two decades after the Soviets sent a woman into space. "On launch day, there was so much excitement and so much happening around us in crew quarters, even on the way to the launch pad," Ride recalled in a Nasa interview for the 25th anniversary of her flight in 2008.

"I didn't really think about it that much at the time - but I came to appreciate what an honour it was to be selected to be the first to get a chance to go into space."

Ride flew in space twice, both times on Challenger in 1983 and in 1984, logging 343 hours in space. A third flight was cancelled when Challenger exploded in 1986.

She was on the commission investigating that accident and later served on the panel for the 2003 Columbia shuttle accident, the only person on both boards. She also was on the president's committee of science advisers.

RSA: Russian Cosmonaut Feoktistov Dies At 83

Well-known spaceship designer and one of the Soviet Union's first cosmonauts, Konstantin Feoktistov, has died at 83 in Moscow, the Russian space agency Roscosmos said Sunday.


"We report with regret that Konstantin Feoktistov, a famous Soviet cosmonaut, died in Moscow on Saturday. Information on the funeral service, place and time of the burial will be available later," a Roscosmos spokesman said.

Feoktistov was one of those who designed Soyuz and Progress spaceships, and the Salyut and Mir space stations until 1990. From 1990 he worked as a professor at a Moscow technical university.

Feoktistov, who was the only non-Communist cosmonaut in the Soviet Union, made a spaceflight on board the Voskhod spaceship in 1964. He was awarded the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union for that first group spaceflight in history.

A crater on the Moon is named after Feoktistov.

Argentinian Astronaut Fernando Caldeiro dies at 51

Fernando "Frank" Caldeiro, a NASA astronaut and the first person of Argentinean descent to train for a spaceflight, died on Saturday after a two and a half year battle with brain cancer. He was 51.

First hired by NASA in 1991 as an expert in cryogenics and propulsion systems for the Kennedy Space Center's safety and mission assurance office in Florida, he took part in 52 space shuttle launches before being chosen as an astronaut candidate in 1996.

As a member of NASA's 16th class of "ascans," dubbed "The Sardines" because at 44 candidates they were the largest group of astronauts to be chosen to date, Caldeiro went through basic training alongside Peggy Whitson, the current chief of the Astronaut Office, and Jeff Williams, who arrived aboard the International Space Station (ISS) last week, among many others.

Caldeiro however, would never be assigned to a mission. This must be the most devastating and disappointing feeling for an 'astronaut'. To work with every fibre of your being with the sole intention of 'going into Space', experiencing the roller-coaster Shuttle ride into Zero Gravity, looking back down on our beautiful Earth and returning with a wealth of sensations, visions and experiences to relate to the Earth bound peoples of the world. Only it never happened.

In 2006, he told the Orlando Sentinel newspaper, "Flying in space, to me, has become more like, well, you know, you can't chase something so much that you run it over. You can be obsessed by it and be miserable or you can say, 'Well, this is an opportunity; I'm first in line in front of 350-million other people.'"

Embracing a career with NASA that followed the latter path, Caldeiro served in technical support roles, first as the lead astronaut for the station's life support systems and its European-built components, reviewing the design and manufacture of the U.S. "Harmony" Node 2 and European Space Agency (ESA) Columbus modules, as well as the yet-to-be-launched Cupola robotics viewing port and the space shuttle-lofted cargo carriers, the Multi Purpose Logistics Modules (MPLM).

From June 2005 to December 2006, Caldeiro served as the lead astronaut in charge of shuttle software testing at the Johnson Space Center's Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory, testing in-flight maintenance procedures, prior to being reassigned to Houston's nearby Ellington Field to direct the high-altitude atmospheric research experiment program carried onboard NASA's WB-57 aircraft.

He was still serving in that role when he passed away. He never did fully experience the thrill of his dreams and that brings me sadness for a life, so well spent but only partly fulfilled.

Chicago Research Scientist Dies of the Plague

There's no sign of any spread after the rare, possibly plague-related death of a University of Chicago scientist, public health officials said Monday as federal authorities flew in to help investigate.

As a precaution, antibiotics have been offered to about 100 co-workers, friends and family of genetics researcher Malcolm Casadaban, who died earlier this month after lab exposure to a weakened form of the bacterium that causes plague.

The strain is federally approved for lab studies. Dr. Kenneth Alexander, a UC infectious disease specialist, likened it to a "crocodile with no teeth" and called Casadaban's death a mystery.

Casadaban's lab on the South Side campus has been sealed off while authorities investigate.

Officials have said it's unlikely anyone else would be infected, and a Chicago Department of Public Health spokesman said Monday the window for that happening was nearly over.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent three scientists to Chicago on Monday to help with the investigation.

"It is very rare for a scientist's death to be linked to a pathogen he or she was studying," said CDC spokesman Dave Daigle. He didn't have information on any cases.

Alexander said the last one he recalled was Howard Taylor Ricketts, a former University of Chicago scientist who did pioneering research on two other bacterial diseases — Rocky Mountain spotted fever and typhus. Ricketts died of typhus in 1910 while researching the organism.

Casadaban, who studied the genetics of dangerous bacteria, was interested in what made such organisms so aggressive.