Twenty-five Years After ERBS and SAGE II: The Life, Data and Death of a Satellite Mission

What makes a successful Earth observing satellite mission: flawless launch?During its October 1984 deployment from the Space Shuttle Challenger by astronaut Sally Ride, the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite Experiment (ERBS) solar panel stuck. Ride had to shake the satellite with the Shuttle's robotic arm for the panel to extend. embedFlashVideoV2("/389950main_sage2.flv","center","/

LCROSS Viewer's Guide

Just imagine. A spaceship plunges out of the night sky, hits the ground and explodes. A plume of debris billows back into the heavens, leading your eye to a second ship in hot pursuit. Four minutes later, that one hits the ground, too. It's raining spaceships!Put on your hard hat and get ready for action, because on Friday, Oct. 9, what you just imagined is really going to happen--and you can

NASA Researcher Shares in Nobel Prize

Jack W. Szostak, a principal investigator with NASA's Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology Program and a member of the NASA Astrobiology Insitute, is among a group of three researchers who have been awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. Szostak shares this year's prestigious scientific award with Elizabeth H. Blackburn of the University of California, San Francisco, and Carol W.

Squyres Wins Carl Sagan Medal for Public Outreach

For his work making NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission a compelling saga for millions of people, Steven W. Squyres, the Goldwin Smith Professor of Astronomy and principal scientific investigator for the mission, has received the 2009 Carl Sagan Medal from the American Astronomical Society.The Sagan medal recognizes a planetary scientist for excellence in public communication. Squyres will

Preflight Interview: Maxim Suraev

Q: Of all the careers in all the world that a person could aspire to, you have ended up as a professional space traveler. Max, what motivated you or inspired you to become a cosmonaut?A: What inspired me? It’s no secret that a person always tries to be better than he is, than he actually is or than he is now. A person always tries to develop, to move forward. Therefore, initially, when I was a

NASA's Pathfinder Aircraft Tracks Weather for Ferry Flight

Space shuttle Discovery returned to NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Sept. 21 perched on top of a modified Boeing 747 jumbo jet. But it wasn't an ordinary cross-country piggyback journey.In fact, the two-day ferry flight from California proved to be one of the greatest tests ever for the NASA C-9 "pathfinder" aircraft that scouts safe routes ahead of the shuttle."This shuttle return is the biggest

Preflight Interview: Jeffrey Williams

Q: Of all the careers in all the world that a person could aspire to, you’ve ended up as a professional space traveler. So what was it that motivated you, or inspired you, to become an astronaut?A: Well, I think it was a series of events and opportunities that kind of fell before me as I grew up. Growing up through high school even, I never even dreamed of the possibility. I thought it was all