Spaceflight Blog

Expedition 16 Commander Peggy Whitson, Flight Engineer cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and South Korean spaceflight participant So-yeon Yi boarded a Soyuz space capsule and undocked from the space station last night and headed toward landing this morning. The Soyuz TMA-11 safely landed on the steppes of Kazakhstan around 4:30 a.m. EDT Saturday after 192 days in space and a hairy return trip that set the three astronauts down almost 300 miles from the intended landing site.

Read the rest of this entry »

This week we take a look at the next shuttle mission. Endeavour is scheduled to launch on STS-123 March 11 on a flight to the International Space Station. This is one of the most exciting and complex shuttle flights to date. Endeavour will deliver the first module of the the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Kibo laboratory to the space station and will also take up the Canadian-built Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator, Dextre, which will act like a remote-controlled hand for doing maintenance work on the station. The 16-day flight will be the longest shuttle flight to the station yet.

http://www.thisweekinspace.com/programs/thisweekinspace_030208.mp3

Following the two-day Flight Readiness Review, NASA’s senior space shuttle program managers set Friday, March 11 at 2:28 a.m. EDT is the official launch time for space shuttle Endeavour’s STS-123 mission. Approval to press ahead with launch preparations came at the conclusion of a very smooth review of the readiness of the shuttle, flight crew and payload for the next flight to the International Space Station.

“It was a very thorough review, we covered lots information, lots of data,” Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations. “The teams are truly ready.” He added that there are very few issues being worked and the shuttle is ready to go. “It’s a tribute to the teams that they worked so well with the vehicle… they’ve done a phenomenal job,” said Gerstenmaier.

Click the link below to read the full story and watch video of the post FRR press conference:

http://www.spacearium.com/article.php?story=20080302172118832