Astronauts David Wolf and Timothy Kopra are preparing for a spacewalk today, the first of five planned by the Endeavour astronauts, to ready an experiment platform for attachment to the Japanese Kibo laboratory module.
Archive for July 18, 2009
External science deck hoisted out of shuttle payload bay
Astronauts Koichi Wakata and shuttle pilot Douglas Hurley, operating the International Space Station’s robot arm, carefully pulled a 4.1-ton experiment platform from Endeavour’s payload bay today for attachment to the Japanese Kibo laboratory module.
Shuttle Endeavour docks with the space station
Manually flying the shuttle Endeavour from the aft flight deck, commander Mark Polansky guided the 120-ton orbiter to a gentle docking with the International Space Station today as the two spacecraft sailed 220 miles above northern Australia at five miles per second.
Strips of foam peeled away from Endeavour’s fuel tank
Post-launch photography of the shuttle Endeavour’s external tank shows multiple areas of bare metal where thin strips of foam insulation peeled away during the climb to space, the result of an as-yet-unknown mechanism.
NASA’s Orion Crew Module Includes Majestic Ejection System [Space]
Just in case something goes wrong with Orion’s launch, NASA included a pretty sweet abort system that would, with any luck, bring the crew safely down to Earth. This render shows that ejection is…
Endeavour rockets into space on sixth launch try
Running a month late because of hydrogen leaks and stormy weather, the shuttle Endeavour finally roared to life and blasted off Wednesday on its sixth try, rocketing away through a hazy sky toward a Friday rendezvous with the International Space Station.
NASA sets launch options for Wednesday and Thursday
Engineers replaced rocket nozzle rain covers Tuesday and prepared the shuttle Endeavour for a sixth launch attempt Wednesday, weather permitting, to get a complex space station construction mission underway.
Weather again keeps shuttle Endeavour on the pad
For the second day in a row, approaching thunderstorms near the Kennedy Space Center Monday forced NASA managers to order another launch delay for the shuttle Endeavour’s frustrated crew.
Lightning checks delay shuttle’s launch to Sunday
Already a month behind schedule, launch of the shuttle Endeavour on a 16-day space station assembly mission was delayed at least 24 hours, from Saturday to Sunday, to give engineers time to evaluate the effects of multiple lightning strikes at the launch pad during a severe thunderstorm Friday.