NASA unplugs last space shuttle, Endeavour

NASA pulled the plug on its last powered space shuttle Friday, 20 years after it flew its first mission. Space shuttle technicians working inside Orbiter Processing Facility-2 (OPF-2) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida powered down Endeavour, the youngest of the retired fleet’s orbiters, at 9:58 a.m. Continue reading

NASA's Budget Woes Require Tough Space Tech Balancing Act

LOS ANGELES — With NASA facing tight budget constraints, the space agency must strike a balance between devoting funds to keep existing missions and spacecraft operating, while also investing in new technology and innovation for future exploration, an agency official said this week. Continue reading

SpaceX Crew Accommodations System Receives NASA Approval

May 9, 2012 Image Caption: Interior of DragonRider mock-up, showing the seat configuration. Credit: NASA Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Dragon capsule has received NASA approval for their crew accommodations system, bringing the private-sector firms spacecraft one step closer to a commercial test flight, the US space agency announced Tuesday Continue reading

NASA conducts tests on Orion service module

ScienceDaily (May 9, 2012) Engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center are testing parts of the Orion service module to ensure the spacecraft can withstand the harsh realities of deep space missions. To date, Marshall has completed two structural loads tests, and another is under way. Continue reading

NASA spacecraft detects changes in Martian sand dunes

ScienceDaily (May 9, 2012) NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed that movement in sand dune fields on the Red Planet occurs on a surprisingly large scale, about the same as in dune fields on Earth. Continue reading

Video: NASA monitoring "monster sunspots"

Nicholas Katzenbach, civil-rights policy defender, dies at 90 As deputy attorney general in 1963, Nicholas Katzenbach confronted Alabama’s segregationist governor demanding he obey a federal court order to admit two black students to the all-white University of Alabama. Scott Pelley reports the trusted adviser to JFK and LBJ has died at the age of 90. Continue reading

NASA 'space taxi' will reduce reliance on Russia to go to International Space Station

NASA needs a new service after retiring space shuttle last year Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos runs of four companies research space taxi service By Eddie Wrenn PUBLISHED: 06:45 EST, 10 May 2012 | UPDATED: 07:53 EST, 10 May 2012 Two of NASA’s biggest contractors are teaming up with a European agency to create a ‘space taxi’ for when astronauts need a quick lift away from this planet. Currently, NASA must ‘catch a ride’ from the Russian space agency when astronauts want to visit the International Space Station, following the retirement of the space shuttle last year Continue reading

NASA Budget Cuts Draw Threat of Presidential Veto

A 2013 spending bill that would fund NASA’s commercial crew program below the level President Barack Obama requested drew a veto threat Monday (May 7) as the U.S. House of Representatives was preparing to begin debate on the proposal. Continue reading

Shuttle rocket-builder vying for NASA space taxi work

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – Two of NASA's prime contractors are teaming with Europe's Astrium to develop a commercial space taxi built from shuttle heritage booster rockets and a prototype NASA spaceship originally designed as an alternative to the deep-space Orion capsule, the companies announced on Wednesday. Continue reading

NASA's ER-2 completes MABEL validation deployment

ScienceDaily (May 5, 2012) NASA’s high-flying ER-2 Airborne Science aircraft has concluded its four-week deployment to validate data acquired by the Multiple Altimeter Beam Experiment Lidar (MABEL) laser altimeter over the Greenland ice cap and surrounding sea ice fields. After an almost 10 and one-half hour transit flight from its deployment base in Keflavik, Iceland, NASA ER-2 pilot Stu Broce landed ER-2 806 April 27 at the Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, Calif. The lengthy flight from Iceland included data collection by the MABEL instrument over a portion of broadleaf deciduous forest in Wisconsin. Continue reading

Stunning Ice Views Captured by Airborne NASA Mission

Arctic ice is undergoing rapid changes, and for the fourth year running, NASA scientists are flying missions above the region's forbidding landscapes to monitor the changes taking place there. Continue reading

Hackers Group Hits NASA, USAF

May 4, 2012 7:25pm A previously unknown hackers group calling themselves The Unknowns has compromised websites and obtained documents from NASA, the U.S. Air Force, the French Ministry of Defense, the European Space Agency, the Bahrain Ministry of Defense, the Thai Royal Navy and Harvard Universitys School of Public Health Continue reading