Spaceflight Now | Breaking News

Sunday: July 22, 2001		0545 GMT

Shuttle Atlantis undocks from space station Atlantis and the International Space Station parted company at 0454 GMT (12:54 a.m. EDT) this morning after a successful eight-day stay that saw the installation of the Quest airlock. Check our status center for the latest. MISSION STATUS CENTER - live updates VIDEO: UNDOCKING - subscribers only VIDEO: CREW GOODBYES - subscribers only TODAY'S FLIGHT PLAN - 60k PDF file MISSION VIDEO THEATER - subscribe now

Lightning strike delays Atlas launch 24 hours Sunday's predawn launch of a Lockheed Martin Atlas 2A rocket with the GOES-M weather satellite has been postponed 24 hours after lightning struck near the neighboring pad at Cape Canaveral's Complex 36. Officials have decided to recheck the rocket before proceeding with the launch. MISSION STATUS CENTER - updates LAUNCH EVENTS TIMELINE GOES-M FACT SHEET

Solar sail experiment lost due to launcher problem Officials analyzing data from this week's test flight of a solar sail demonstrator have confirmed that the third stage of the Volna rocket failed to separate from the spacecraft. That left the inflatable re-entry shield and the two solar sail blades unable to deploy, dooming the mission. FULL STORY

Saturday: July 21, 2001		1200 GMT

Spacewalkers christen station's Quest airlock Astronauts Mike Gernhardt and Jim Reilly inaugurated the space station's newly installed Quest airlock today by stepping through its hatch on a four-hour spacewalk. The successful EVA mounted a final gas tank to Quest. FULL STORY MISSION STATUS CENTER TODAY'S FLIGHT PLAN MISSION VIDEO THEATER - subscribe now VIDEO: AIRLOCK TOUR - subscribers only VIDEO: CREW CONFERENCE - subscribers only
More mission coverage here:
Weather forecast iffy for Atlas rocket launch An advanced U.S weather satellite is supposed to be launched into space in the predawn hours on Sunday from Cape Canaveral atop a Lockheed Martin Atlas 2A rocket, but in an ironic twist bad weather could keep the mission grounded. MISSION STATUS CENTER - updates LAUNCH EVENTS TIMELINE

Success of solar sail experiment unknown The whereabouts of the re-entry vehicle from Thursday evening's launch of a first-of-a-kind solar sail test flight were unknown Friday, after recovery forces failed to find the craft in Russia's far east as planned. The capsule contains the only record of the sail deployment experiment. FULL STORY

DAILY BRIEFING Other stories making news today

1660th successful launch of Soyuz -- The 1,660th successful flight of a Soyuz launch vehicle took place on Friday from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia. The launcher lifted off on schedule and the governmental spacecraft was placed on the target orbit.

Friday: July 20, 2001		0318 GMT

Does the Red Planet have liquid water today? Volumes of data collected by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft have led some scientists to conclude that liquid water may have existed on the surface of Mars relatively recently in its history. FULL STORY

Solar sail demo launched The suborbital test flight of a first-of-a-kind solar sail got underway today. A Volna rocket was launched at 0033 GMT from a Russian submarine in the Barents Sea carrying the Cosmos 1 solar sail testbed. Check back later for a full report.

Search for cause of X-43A launch failure narrows The board investigating last month's X-43A launch failure is continuing to meet at the Orbital Sciences Corp. facility where the Pegasus-derived booster rocket was built. NASA says the team had narrowed its inquiry mostly to the "booster vehicle control arena." FULL STORY

Atlas rocket to launch new U.S. weather satellite A satellite that will observe earthly and solar weather conditions is on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral for a weekend blastoff atop a Lockheed Martin Atlas 2A rocket. FULL STORY

European Space Agency starts recovery of Artemis ESA's Artemis communications technology satellite, left in a significantly lower than planned orbit when its Ariane 5 launcher malfunctioned last week, has completed the first orbit-raising maneuver. Controllers hope to boost the craft to its correct orbit over the next several months. Read the full ESA statement on recovery plans: FULL STORY

Star clusters born in cosmic collision wreckage In the beginning of the 1946 holiday film classic "It's a Wonderful Life," angelic figures take on the form of a famous group of compact galaxies known as Stephan's Quintet. In reality, these galaxies aren't so heavenly. Pictures from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope show that Stephan's Quintet has been doing some devilish things. FULL STORY

Hot gas halo seen around Milky Way-like galaxy The first unambiguous evidence for a giant halo of hot gas around a nearby, spiral galaxy much like our own Milky Way was found by astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. This discovery may lead to a better understanding of our own Galaxy, as well the structure and evolution of galaxies in general. FULL STORY

Thursday: July 19, 2001		1550 GMT

Space station crew fix one airlock leak, find others Astronauts aboard the international space station successfully swapped out a leaky valve Wednesday night, but encountered more leaks as they continued work to prepare the orbital outpost's new airlock. MISSION STATUS CENTER MISSION VIDEO THEATER (subscribe now) ASTRONAUTS' DETAILED FLIGHT PLAN QUICK-LOOK MISSION FACTS

Star clusters born in cosmic collision wreckage In the beginning of the 1946 holiday film classic "It's a Wonderful Life," angelic figures take on the form of a famous group of compact galaxies known as Stephan's Quintet. In reality, these galaxies aren't so heavenly. Pictures from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope show that Stephan's Quintet has been doing some devilish things. FULL STORY

'The Dish' tests Einstein's warped space In the most precise astrophysics experiment ever made, Australian and U.S. astronomers have used a radio telescope to measure the distortion of space-time near a star 450 light-years from Earth. Their results, confirming Einstein's general theory of relativity, are published in the journal "Nature". FULL STORY

Volcano research erupts in space The view from the rim of Mt. St. Helens may be thrilling, but one of the best and safest ways to study volcanoes is from space. New spaceborne instruments let scientists peer deep into volcanoes and learn about their behavior. FULL STORY

Solar-powered flying wing aims for record altitude The sky is black 100,000 feet above ground, and you can clearly see the curvature of the Earth. The air is so thin it is incapable of supporting life. It is also incapable of supporting sustained horizontal flight of an aircraft-until now. FULL STORY

Wednesday: July 18, 2001		1200 GMT

Spacewalkers mount gas tanks to space station After a computer scare reminiscent of problems that crippled the international space station in April, two spacewalkers successfully attached three high-pressure gas tanks to the lab's new airlock today, manually wrestling the 1,200-pound canisters into place. FULL STORY MISSION STATUS CENTER MISSION VIDEO THEATER (subscribe now) ASTRONAUTS' DETAILED FLIGHT PLAN QUICK-LOOK MISSION FACTS

Watch global warming happen...on Mars Global climate change does occur, and sometimes so quickly that you can watch it happening. Just look at our neighbor, Mars: within the last month, the global atmospheric temperature of Mars has increased by approximately 50 degrees F, according to data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. FULL STORY

ERS-1 satellite marks a decade of watching Earth When ERS-1 was lofted into orbit on July 17, 1991, it carried the hopes of Europe's scientific community. For nerve-wracking minutes, those hopes looked as though they might be dashed when contact was temporarily lost with the craft as it rose into space. Since then, the satellite has provided a stream of data which has changed our view of the world on which we live. FULL STORY

Surfing and diving in the Earth's magnetosphere Space scientists around the world are celebrating the first anniversary of the European Space Agency's revolutionary Cluster mission to explore near-Earth space and study the interaction between the Sun and Earth. FULL STORY

Tuesday: July 17, 2001		0339 GMT

Inquiry board named to probe Ariane 5 failure The outside investigative panel charged with determining why the Ariane 5 rocket malfunctioned last week and how to fix the problem has been appointed by Arianespace, the European Space Agency and the French space agency CNES. FULL STORY

Odyssey probe passes half-way mark to Mars NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has passed the half-way mile marker on its voyage to the Red Planet. It has been 100 days since Odyssey's launch atop a Boeing Delta 2 rocket from Cape Canaveral and 100 days remain until it arrives at Mars. FULL STORY

Former X-33 aerospike engine continues firing NASA's Stennis Space Center has successfully completed a critical initial test for the Space Launch Initiative of technology used on the former X-33 program's Linear Aerospike XRS-2200 engine. The engine was fired for about five seconds last week. FULL STORY

DAILY BRIEFING Other stories making news today

NASA's Galileo continues interplanetary gas studies -- Standard cruise activities continue for the Galileo spacecraft this relatively quiet week. In the realm of real-time science data collection, the Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrometer (EUV) continues its two-month-long study of interplanetary hydrogen gas.

Monday: July 16, 2001		0430 GMT

Hubble: Magnetic fields weaving rings around stars There are stars with planets. Stars with companion stars. Stars with pancake-shaped disks of rocky debris. But how about young, hot, hefty stars embedded in large inner tube-shaped clouds of shimmering gas? FULL STORY

DAILY BRIEFING Other stories making news today

Loral to build two X-band satellites -- Loral Space & Communications has announced that Space Systems/Loral, the company's satellite manufacturing and technology unit, will build two new satellites to provide leased transponder and network communications services to the Spanish Ministry of Defense and government users in the United States, Spain and other friendly nations.

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A 50-minute VHS video cassette from Spaceflight Now features spectacular "rocketcam" footage from April's launch of NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey probe. Available from the Astronomy Now Store in NTSC format (North America and Japan) and PAL (UK, most of Europe, Australia and other countries).

Earlier news
July 9-15: Ariane 5 rocket fails; Atlantis launches doorway for space station Alpha; Security breach forces tighter shuttle protection; Scientists: Water-bearing worlds beyond solar system.

July 2-8: Hubble captures best view of Mars obtained from Earth; Astronomers discover giant Kuiper Belt object; NASA, Boeing dispute major TDRS problem.

June 25-July 1: MAP launched to measure afterglow of the Big Bang; Hints of planet-sized drifters bewilder scientists; Satellite images tell tale of Wisconsin tornado.

June 18-24: Atlas launches foundation of ICO satellite system; Temperature map of Io presents a puzzle; Pegasus launch of HESSI postponed indefinitely; Atlantis rolled to launch pad; Grounded military weather satellite finally repaired.

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