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For the rest of 1999's News From Space, click here.
30 September 1999 - What killed The Climate Observer?
A caused by part of the
probe's being entered in
(pounds of force) and part being entered in
(newtons). The firm that
the spacecraft, ,
submitted acceleration data to
using the English figures, but specify that measurements should use the . , indeed!
Check your local for the
upcoming "" special about the on .
29 September - Time-share in space? Cash-strapped
Russians may on
to other space agencies.
Largest explosions in the universe may come from the .
28 September - NASA to
Mars Orbiter loss - Contact with the probe last Thursday.
telescope
with .
26 September - The Climate Observer was part of
the philosophy for planetary exploration. The probably ventured below the and broke up in the Martian atmosphere. No one ever said
that space exploration was !
How
is the Shuttle fleet?
Man busted for trying to sell .
This Week In Space History - Two
anniversaries:
The 11th anniversary () of
(Shuttle )
,
the . Mission Fact sheet ;
info ;
Image collections
and .
This was the first Shuttle
after the 31 months earlier - you know they were keeping a on this one! This mission featured a
of a .
The 5th anniversary () of
(Shuttle )
,
the . Mission Fact sheet ; Crew info
;
Image collection .
This mission landed at and featured the among its many payloads.
This week also marks the 37th anniversary () of the launch of , the . The
went
from () on a rocket. This
made the
to have a
in orbit. Alouette I stayed in orbit for , studying the .
25 September - The will land this December - how can
ensure its ?
( story - registration required).
NASA administrator wants to
part of the !
24 September - FLASH!!! Latest - The , a
to orbit the and study its weather patterns, has been after a
voyage from Earth. Apparently, directed the probe to come too close to the Martian
surface, causing it to either or in the thin atmosphere. Scientists with the orbiter , and by this morning, they had and for the 125-million-dollar(US) probe.
This is a serious
for /,
but the upcoming mission is not in danger - though some of its
experiments will have to be re-arranged. GRRR!! First , now this - maybe
up there doesn't want us getting too close??
Can point the way to extrasolar planets?
Commercial imaging satellite .
Ikonos is the world's
non-military satellite.
23 September - with
Climate !!
claims
supercollider "".
22 September - New
discovered around !
The now has the in our , with .
arrival of Climate Orbiter.
Round-the
world - the historic gondola was added to the National Air & Space
Museum's Milestones Of Flight exhibit. (Whaddya mean
that's not space news??? It was called the !!!)
21 September - Controversial to create
- and maybe a ???
Shuttle
ancient Scottish !
19 September -
concedes that - de-orbit mission in doubt.
found at center of our .
Christie's
nets ""
- a total of US
was collected for various
exploration
in .
moon-dust-covered
patch sold for .
This Week In Space History - (25 Sep 97) of
(Shuttle )
,
the . Mission Fact sheet ; Crew info
;
KSC image collection .
This was
the seventh
with the station and
a US-Russian .
18 September -
didn't only hit Florida and the Carolinas - we lost power here in
northern NJ for 28 hours! Check out these photos of the at Kennedy Space Center (NASA) and Cape Canaveral Air
Station (USAF)! An exhibit of a Mercury Redstone rocket from the the
60's was
by the high winds. also closed for the storm, as KSC came back on-line Thursday (16 September).
15 September - The as Hurricane
skirts Florida. Millions fled the hurricane-force winds, which even
caused Disney World to close down for a full day for the first time
in its 28-year history. The gigantic lost some , but the overall . KSC's web server is still down at this writing.
Mark Lee removed from next May's
mission - allegedly for "" - what's that all
about??? More info on in the STS-47 story below.
Christie's this Saturday in NYC (full article below).
14 September - Cape Canaveral is
threatened by ! The in the Orbiter Processing Facility. The
will probably not score a direct hit on the Cape, but may make
landfall further up the U.S. coast. KSC has been
except for a , and the currently on launch pads remain outside, but secured as
much as possible. Even this website is affected, as many links to
NASA web sites are temporarily off-line.
First Earth-sized planet
outside our solar system!
Today In Space History: Forty years ago today, the Soviet probe became the to reach another planetary body,
into the
near .
30 minutes later, the last stage of its
also
the .
12 September - Wow!
This Week In Space History features four
anniversaries plus a
mission!
Today marks the of the (GT-XI) ,
the . Mission Fact sheet ;
Crew info ;
Image collection .
This mission was
by the late , who would later become an and the first . The
crew practiced docking techniques with an and created the when pilot
the
by a .
See the Shuttle
Page for the rest of this week's anniversaries.
News: 23-26 September - seats still available! NASA
chief Dan Goldin will be giving the .
Shuttle repairs .
spaceplane
at NASA's .
approaches the . Photos .
heading for the Cape! Rocket launches .
Are the source of much of the
in the ?
10 September - Public events at
mark exploration .
Pasadena is the place to be !
Why is everybody ???
9 September - Happy !
Gov't panel for missile failures.
NASA sets tentative
launch dates -
next 2 flights. Fleet may last another !
Next-generation may be .
1100-foot-tall observed on !
Here is the latest from NASA.
""
in .
Did NASA an
mission?
8 September - JPL Flight
projects director at 76 - career spanned .
5 September - Cell phone
acting up? Radio stations fuzzy? Blame .
Scientists still looking for in data.
photo tour (super-quality
of , assembled by ) continues on to the Museum of Modern Art . You can still catch the exhibit at the
at Arlington, VA until 12 September (as part of the exhibit) or at the in London until 19 September.
(244 pages) available .
This Week In Space History - See the Shuttle Page for the rest of this week's
anniversaries.
4 September - Space as surface! also face delays.
2 September - snaps a few
of Earth's
on its way to Saturn.
1 September 1999 - Cosmonauts warn
that unattended could !
High-end auction house
will feature a this month -
like Neil Armstrong's spacesuit (not the one he wore on the -
that's in the Smithsonian), Deke Slayton's watch, etc. will go on 16 September. For those of us without an extra few
$100K lying around, the
is available for $35.
This Week In Space History - Two
anniversaries (moved to the Shuttle Page).
space telescope continues to .
28 August - The of the
space station, Mir, has in their
to a hero's welcome, parachuting back to .
The
will remain in orbit for six more months, in case private investors
can . Otherwise, a will push it out of orbit, where most of the will
burn up in the atmosphere. TV-set-sized chunks of
will survive re-entry. will attempt to the de-orbit it over
the ocean, but there is a chance that small pieces of wreckage may
come down in .
One of the returning cosmonauts, , holds the world's record for , clocking in 742 days in orbit.
Hurricane Dennis
Cape Canaveral!
26 August - After , the Russian
space station is due to be ! Will there be one more clean-up crew after this? The
station's , and a freight transport will be used to push it out
of next
spring, burning it up over the Pacific. The sometimes- has
far beyond its originally-intended 5-year lifespan. Full story at .
X-Ray
returns ! The transmitted its of photos to today.
Water from a stone? found in !
25 August - Upcoming
launches due to .
may go up in late October for . NASA
reveals upcoming for mission. at the may
evidence of past .
New ""
to be - will any of be used for
purposes?
Russia will
Mir station!
NASA to release first .
What is a nano-satellite???
23 August - The GPS bug bites, but only a little - see the GPS
page for details.
The controversy over the
4 space capsule "" continues, as a man who worked for the
of the hatch and blew the hatch prematurely.
Astronaut insisted that an caused the hatch to blow, sending the
to the where it would remain until it was . ,
who in the incident, would go on to command , and
perished in the tragic in 1967.
that accidentally, and awarded him a
Distinguished Service medal in addition to assigning him to further
space missions.
Is to beat the U.S. to man the ?
22 August - GPS Rollover bug doesn't bite - more details at
the GPS
page.
NASA to reveal site of next
Mars mission this week - will also hold briefings on new X-Vehicle
programs.
NASA
- accepts delivery of .
This Week In Space History -
anniversary (moved to the Shuttle Page).
21 August - The Global Positioning System (GPS) network of
satellites experiences the first rollover of its 1024-week counter tonight.
Learn what this may mean to you at our new GPS
page.
19 August -
Probe
performs Earth
to gain
on its way to
to study the , and drop off the European Space Agency's
probe to study Saturn's
moon, . More Space History -17th
anniversary of Soviet mission to the orbiting space station (19 Aug 1982). The
featured the world's second
in space, , who became the on this mission. The Salyut were a series of small launched by the USSR, eventually
into today's space
station.
America's first ,
,
went up seven months after the Soviets, and the would not do so until October
1984.
15 August - This Week In Space History - 34th
anniversary of the launch. On 21 August 1965, astronauts (who became the first astronaut to have orbited the
earth in two separate missions) and
into
atop a from at Cape Canaveral (then known as Cape Kennedy).
(GT-5) was the third
flight of , an important string of missions that took the early
triumphs of the Mercury series and advanced the state of the art in
space travel with achievements like the first U.S. spacewalk, first
U.S. rendezvous between 2 ships, and more.
would later lead up to the historic Apollo moon landings. Click
for NASA's Gemini 5 photo archive. from
AFB's .
Hey, did you notice the Air Force markings on there (instead of
NASA)? Stay tuned for the scoop on that!
So, how about that nuke-powered , eh? , NASA/JPL says the mission to
is
even though the length and distance of the flight requires a with 72 pounds of plutonium on board.
will mark its closest
of Earth (for a back to the ). So all you
people can go home now.
No meteors? No eclipse? What's left to look at?
Check .
14 August - to
makes
of !
13 August - [Eclipse links have been moved
to the new Eclipse Page -
Shuttle stories to the new Shuttle
Page].
Check here for news on the
next Shuttle mission.
Check
for an article about a "secret" spy satellite .
Live coverage from at !
More news on the possible failure of the later this month - stay tuned for a full
report!
Is the a ""?
12 August - [Eclipse links have been moved to the Eclipse
Page].
Here Come the Perseids: The 1999 peaks later this week with exceptionally expected under the dark skies of a nearly new . FLASH! early Thursday & Friday mornings!
9 August - This week in space history:
Lots-O-Links about the Space Shuttles Enterprise & Columbia -
now moved to the new Shuttle
Page.
Forget the Y2K bug - what about the ?!? The is rolling over on its . Will we be lost without this vital service?
7 August - More news...
6 August 1999 - This week in Space History - Forty years ago
tomorrow, (), the launched an
, called , on a rocket. The ,
launched from from Pad 17 at , was deemed a despite a
orbit,
because it returned the . Other
anniversaries include the 2 Aug 91 launch of
(Shuttle Atlantis) and the 7 Aug 97 launch of
(Shuttle Discovery).
1 August 1999 - The on the Red Planet?
announces
for 2003.
is ready to embark on their own manned space program. The more the
merrier, I say!
In news, two cosmonauts went out for what is likely
outside
the . Russia has agreed to pay $115 million in overdue rent for use of the
in Kazakhstan.
More Shuttle Events... [Top of Page]
31 July 1999 - The
spacecraft, which has been orbiting the Moon for 18
months now, has
into the - on purpose! The space probe was running out of fuel
anyway, and scientists wanted to control the end of the successful
mission by directing it into a region of the that may contain
pockets of ice. The is testing a theory that
exists at the , deposited over millions of years by comet
impacts; the ice may be locked into the topsoil in craters that are
permanently in shadow. The presence of water on the lunar surface
would make further manned exploration much easier. There might be enough water on the Moon to support human
colonies! The
was intended to throw up a plume of
that would be visible from Earth. So far, has been
observed, but images are still being analyzed and it could be weeks
before we see any results.
Prospector also provides a for astronomer Eugene Shoemaker (of fame), some of whose ashes are on board. His many
discoveries include the comet that smashed into Jupiter in 1994. The
burial of the ashes in the lunar south pole makes him the to be interred on another world.
35 years ago today (31 July 1964),
the lunar probe returned close-up
of the Moon's surface. The Ranger series was designed to crash-land
on the Moon, beaming images back to Earth until the moment of impact.
The seventh Ranger mission was the first to successfully return
of the surface.
Today is also the 30th anniversary of the flyby of .
30 July 1999 -
- Most people don't know that the Kennedy Space Center is not the
same place as Cape Canaveral - now they are consolidating some
services.
Telescope may have found on Titan!
Columbia back home - engine leak .
Here is the for
the
probe, which completed the closest flyby ever (10 miles) of an
today. Scientists are declaring the mission a
despite the
of a camera to obtain close-up photos of . Some images from further away were
obtained after the .
- Gus Grissom's Mercury 4 capsule after
nearly 40 years! Gus would later go on to command Gemini 3; he perished in the tragic Apollo 1 fire in 1967.
- Thirty years ago this July 20, the single greatest technological
achievement of all time happened...
