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Flightdeck Friday: STS-133 & Last Flight for Shuttle Discovery
The oldest and perhaps most storied of the shuttle fleet, Discovery launched on her final mission today to deliver a final module to the U.S. segment of the International Space Station, the Leonardo Permanent Multipurpose Module, as well as the first humanoid robot to fly in space, Robonaut2. Named for the ships used by Henry…
ISS and Atlantis – as seen from the ground…
… 190 miles away as it were. Amazing the things amature astronomers can do these days. Latest example – take one Boston-area high school class, mix with the Clay Center Observatory‘s 25" telescope, a digital camera and adaptive optics and voila: More on adaptive optics here h/t: Chap and Danger Room
Because It Is All About the Science and International Cooperation…
…Right? Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, flying on the International Space Station, is being criticized by some U.S. observers for using a digital camera equipped with an 800-mm. telephoto lens and a video camera to image what a Russian official said were “after-effects of border conflict operations in the Caucasus” on Aug. 9, soon after the…
Flightdeck Friday: Apollo 11 Forty Years Later
20 July 1969 102:42:08 Duke: Roger. Copy. (Pause) Eagle, Houston. You’re Go for landing. Over. 102:42:13 Armstrong (on-board): Okay. 3000 at 70. 102:42:17 Aldrin: Roger. Understand. Go for landing. 3000 feet. 102:42:19 Duke: Copy. 102:42:19 Aldrin: Program Alarm. (Pause) 1201 102:42:24 Armstrong: 1201. (Pause) (On-board) Okay, 2000 at 50. 102:42:25 Duke: Roger. 1201 alarm. (Pause)…
Final DSP Satellite Lifted to Orbit on First Operational Delta IV Heavy Lift
The last of the 23-satellite Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites was lifted to orbit this past weekend on the newest heavy lift rocket in the US inventory. The Delta IV was developed as part of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program to replace the previous workhorse of US military and commercial heavy lift, the Titan-family. Consisting…
Measuring Progress
Every so often one needs to benchmark progress – and as halting as the US space program has been (and apparently will continue to be for sometime to come) progress is being made. Witness the almost non-chalant nature of the EVAs this week as part of STS-117’s mission to the ISS to deliver and install…


