|
[Space News]
[Gift Shop]
[Home]
| |
Space News September 2000...Note: The links below will
open up in one new browser window. For best viewing, size the two web
browsers so that they don't take up the entire screen - this way, you will be
able to go back and forth to all the stories without losing your place.
Follow our in-depth coverage of the Atlantis mission to the ISS at our
new STS-106 Mission Journal page!
New - Discovery launches October 5th - catch the action on our even
newer STS-92 Mission Journal page!
For the latest News From Space, click here.
For older News From Space, click here, here,
here or here.
For even older News From Space, click here,
here
or here.
 | 30 September 2000 - NASA
has announced the name for the next mission to Mars - not the much
publicized 2003 twin-rover mission, but next year's
orbiter, (due to launch
in April 2001, and arrive at the Red Planet in October
2001). So what's it
called? "2001
Mars Odyssey"! Stop, Dave!
NASA's Scott Hubbard explains:
 "NASA's next mission to Mars, launching in the
year 2001, represents the start of a new wave of exploration at the red
planet. It seemed fitting to name the mission 2001
Mars Odyssey not only in honor of the story and the movie, but also to
herald the start of our new long-term journey to explore Mars."
Here Comes The Sun: Spacecraft Finds Corona's Furnace
(Washington Post). Of course, we know the Sun is hot. What makes it that
way? NASA's TRACE
spacecraft may have found the answer
- massive loops of
solar plasma arching above the Sun's surface, like "fountains
of fire".
Today In Space History - It's the 6th anniversary (30
Sep 1994) of the STS-68
(Shuttle Endeavour)
launch,
the 65th
shuttle mission. Mission Fact sheet here; Crew info
here;
Image collection here.
This mission landed at Edwards
AFB and featured the Space
Radar Laboratory among its many payloads.
|
| 26 September 2000 - Tears for a
cosmonaut: Gherman Titov, the second man to orbit the Earth in 1961, was
buried
Monday in Moscow. Titov, who died of a heart attack last week, was an
early pioneer in the space race. Of course, back then, the Soviet space
program was shrouded in secrecy, unlike the out-in-the-open American
program. Even though he "played for the opposing team," his
accomplishments [see 22
Sep] cannot be ignored. Rest easy...
BBC video report here.UPI: Russia test-fires ballistic missile.
|
| 23 September 2000 - Scientists at NASA and Johns Hopkins University are
pleased
with their first close-up views of asteroid Eros, which is being orbited by
the NEAR-Shoemaker probe. |
| 22 September 2000 - Russian space pioneer Gherman Titov was found dead in his Moscow
home this Wednesday. Titov, 65, passed away in his sauna, a victim of a
heart
attack (not carbon monoxide poisoning, as some early reports
speculated). He was the fourth
man ever to fly in space, after Yuri
Gagarin, Alan
Shepard, and Gus
Grissom. His Vostok 2 mission
(of 17.5 Earth orbits) was the first spaceflight to
last more than 24 hours. At the time of his launch, he was the world's
youngest space traveler (just shy of his 26th
birthday - the record remains unbroken). At the time of his
death, he was the world's senior space traveler - all those who preceded him
into space are deceased. Titov
was Gagarin's backup and came close to being the
first man in
space. He was
the second
person to orbit the Earth, and the first
to sleep in space. After his August
1961 mission, he never flew a spacecraft again. Later
in life, he worked on military aspects of the Soviet and Russian space
program, and he was elected to the Russian Parliament in 1995. The two
Russian members of the just-returned STS-106 Shuttle mission reacted
with sadness at the news.
Today is the Autumnal Equinox - the first day of
Fall in the northern hemisphere. What are the seasons like on other planets?
|
| 20 September 2000 - Is there a supermassive black hole at the center
of our galaxy? UCLA astronomers may have evidence! |
| 18 September 2000 - Wrap up last week's space news at Florida Today. |
| 15 September 2000 - Where's all the Shuttle stuff??? Not to worry
- we moved it to a separate
page! This way, other news (yes, there are other things
going on besides the Shuttle mission!) would be easier to find, and
the pages will load faster. Follow our in-depth coverage of the
Atlantis mission to the ISS at our new
STS-106 Mission Journal page! Is the soil
on Mars sterile?
Here's the latest Shuttle
Status Report - 3 missions covered.
|
| 13 September 2000 -
Look up! It's the Harvest Moon! Duking it out on Mars: A British scientist claims that NASA's twin Mars
rovers will have inferior
instrumentation to the UK's Beagle 2 lander. The three space-probes will
be on the Martian surface in 2003. Them's fightin' words!
|
| 10 September 2000 -
China
has announced that the government will launch a series
of satellites next year to monitor the marine environment. The plan is
to orbit one every two years. They launched a satellite for other domestic
purposes earlier this month.
|
To keep going back in the timeline, check the
Space News Archive for August 2000,
July 2000, June 2000, Apr - May 2000,
March 2000, Jan - Feb 2000,
Oct - Dec 1999,
and before.
[Top of the News]
[STS-106 News]
[Photos]
[Gift Shop]
[Space Home]
|
