Space and Space Travel News

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NRAO

Astronomers Find Enormous Hole in the Universe
August 23, 2007


Graphics - The detection of an extreme "cold spot"


Astronomers have found an enormous hole in the Universe, nearly a billion light-years across, empty of both normal matter such as stars, galaxies, and gas, and the mysterious, unseen "dark matter." While earlier studies have shown holes, or voids, in the large-scale structure of the Universe, this new discovery dwarfs them all.

"Not only has no one ever found a void this big, but we never even expected to find one this size," said Lawrence Rudnick of the University of Minnesota. Rudnick, along with Shea Brown and Liliya R. Williams, also of the University of Minnesota, reported their findings in a paper accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. Continued...

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AP

NASA images to be archived online
By Anick Jesdanun, AP, Aug 29,


Google Earth, India


New York, USA (AP) -- NASA's images from the Apollo moon landings, the Voyager planetary flybys and the many space shuttle missions will be accessible through a central, searchable Web site under a partnership between the space agency and the nonprofit Internet Archive.

The archive will spend millions of dollars to consolidate images that are already in digital form and to convert those that are not. "The big payoff on this will be getting the terrific materials that are basically in the space centers up and available on the Internet," said Brewster Kahle, the archive's founder and digital librarian. "They are still images, different forms of film and video tapes over the years. The idea is to get it all online." Well, not all. Kahle said the archive won't be able to digitize everything NASA has ever produced but will try to capture the images of broadest interest to historians, scholars, students, filmmakers and space enthusiasts. Kahle said the images already in digital form represent the minority of NASA's collections, and they are scattered among some 3,000 Web sites operated by the space agency.

He said those sites would continue to exist; the archive would keep copies on its own servers to provide a single, free site to augment the NASA sites. "It's sometimes a little difficult to find things you might want to use for a school report or a news program," Kahle said. Besides images, the archive may also include audio files, printed documents, computer presentations and other material deemed historically significant. The Internet Archive is bearing all of the costs, and Kahle said fundraising has just started. The five-year agreement is non-exclusive, meaning NASA is free to make similar deals with others to further digitize its collections. The announcement comes as Google Inc. separately incorporated NASA and other space images into its free Google Earth mapping software.
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India related news:
• India's Newspaper 'The Hindu': Independent India at 60.
• Rajasthan Slideshow • Images: India Travel Destinations

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Space.com

Planet formation mystery
By Dave Mosher, Aug 29,

• Water-soaked planet-forming region near star seen

Scientists have finally put together the pieces of the mystery of how planets form.

Planet formation is a story with a well-known beginning and end, but how its middle plays out has been an enigma to scientists-until now. A new computer-modeled theory shows how rocky boulders around infant stars team up to form planets without falling into stars. » New theory

• Space.com: 2000-Year-Old Meteors to Rain Down on August 31, 2007

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Nature.com

Phoenix mission on the launch pad
Katharine Sanderson, 3 Aug 2007


Phoenix can dig half a metre down into the martian soil. » Photos


A mobile laboratory should leave for Mars this weekend, aiming to dig up water ice from beneath the planet's surface. NASA's Phoenix mission is scheduled to launch from the Kennedy Space Center early in the morning of Saturday 4 August. Bad weather has delayed the launch by a day. Brandishing a digging arm and a range of scientific instruments, Phoenix is headed for an area of the martian north polar region thought to be rich in subsurface water ice, which was spotted by NASA's Odyssey spacecraft in 2002.

The craft will have a soft landing on a relatively flat, featureless terrain. The landing is crucial, as Phoenix is an updated version of the Mars Polar Lander, which lost contact with Earth just as it was getting ready to touch down in 1999. Phoenix also contains elements of NASA's Mars Surveyor mission cancelled in 2000. Phoenix has a heat shield to protect it as it enters the Martian atmosphere, a parachute to slow its descent and "” a new development "” small rockets to guide it gently to the surface. NASA has asked the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft, which is in orbit around the planet, to train its camera on Phoenix and monitor the descent. Continued...
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Probe lifts off for journey to Mars

Rocket blasts to Mars

Cape Canaveral, Florida (Reuters) - The Phoneix spacecraft lifts off with an arsenal of equipment to detect if Mars could ever support life. The rocket is equipped with a drill and other instruments to bore down into the ground and retrieve soil and ice samples for analysis. Scientists are hoping that the samples will determine whether the water on Mars had once been liquid, and if it contains any organic molecules. The results obtained from the unmanned rocket's journey could help scientists get a step closer to finding out if life could exist on the planet. Full article - Video

• Space Blog update • Space Operations Web Cams at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral

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Reuters

Fly me to the moon: space hotel sees 2012 opening
By Pascale Harter, Aug 10, 2007


The 'Galactic Suite', hotel would allow its guests to travel around the world in 80 minutes.


Barcelona, Spain (Reuters) - "Galactic Suite", the first hotel planned in space, expects to open for business in 2012 and would allow guests to travel around the world in 80 minutes. Its Barcelona-based architects say the space hotel will be the most expensive in the galaxy, costing $4 million for a three-day stay. During that time guests would see the sun rise 15 times a day and use Velcro suits to crawl around their pod rooms by sticking themselves to the walls like Spiderman.

Company director Xavier Claramunt says the three-bedroom boutique hotel's joined up pod structure, which makes it look like a model of molecules, was dictated by the fact that each pod room had to fit inside a rocket to be taken into space. "It's the bathrooms in zero gravity that are the biggest challenge," says Claramunt. "How to accommodate the more intimate activities of the guests is not easy." But they may have solved the issue of how to take a shower in weightlessness -- the guests will enter a spa room in which bubbles of water will float around. When guests are not admiring the view from their portholes they will take part in scientific experiments on space travel.


Publicity artist photo of the room in the Galactic Suite hotel.


Galactic Suite began as a hobby for former aerospace engineer Claramunt, until a space enthusiast decided to make the science fiction fantasy a reality by fronting most of the $3 billion needed to build the hotel. An American company intent on colonizing Mars, which sees Galaxy Suite as a first step, has since come on board, and private investors from Japan, the United States and the United Arab Emirates are in talks. Continued...


• BBC News: Stargazers set sights on meteors
• NASA document: Crew health in deep space exploration
• Reuters: China to map "every inch" of moon surface: report
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Endeavour docks with Space Station » BBC Video

• CNN: Manned Space Flight » Photos • The Teacher in Space program
• Reuters: Space-walking astronauts install space station beam - Photos from space

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AP

Google Sky allows users to tour galaxies
By Dan Nephin, Aug 22, 2007


» Explore the sky with Google Earth


Pittsburgh, U.S. (AP) -- The heavens are only a few mouse clicks away with Google Inc.'s latest free tool. A new feature in Google Earth, the company's satellite imagery-based mapping software, allows users to view the sky from their computers. The tool provides information about various celestial bodies, from stars to planets, and includes imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope and other sources.

It also allows users to take virtual tours through galaxies, including the Milky Way, from any point on Earth they choose. "By working with some of the industry's leading experts, we've been able to transform Google Earth into a virtual telescope," Lior Ron, a Google product manager, said in a statement. The new software also promises users the ability to see planets in motion and witness a supernova. There are other programs that provide information and pictures of the universe, but Google Sky blends it seamlessly, said Andrew Connolly, a University of Washington associate professor of astronomy and part of Google's visiting faculty program.

"What's unique about this is you have all of the imaging data over the whole of the sky actually streaming. So I can look at something that covers most of the sky, say our Milky Way galaxy, and I can zoom right into a tiny galaxy that's in the formation cycle," he said. Google engineers stitched together "terabytes and terabytes" of images and other data, Connolly said. A terabyte can hold the text of roughly 1 million books. "Sky in Google Earth will foster and initiate new understanding of the universe by bringing it to everyone's home computer," said Dr. Carol Christian of the Space Telescope Science Institute. Current Google Earth users must download a new version from earth.google.com.

The software works on computers running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows, Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X and Linux operating systems. Google, the leading Internet search engine, already provides surface images of Mars and the Moon through its Web site, along with animated and satellite-based maps of Earth. Google Sky was developed at the company's Pittsburgh engineering office.
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On The Net:

Google Earth: http://earth.google.com

Google Sky: http://earth.google.com/sky

Google Moon: http://moon.google.com

Google Mars: http://www.google.com/mars


» http://hubblesite.org

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AP

Google to finance moon challenge contest
By Alicia Chang, AP, Sep 13,


• Google Funds $30M X-Prize


Los Angeles, USA (AP) -- Google Inc. is bankrolling a $30 million contest that could significantly boost the commercial space industry and spur the first non-governmental flight to the moon. full story


Google - Let the race begin...

Related News:
• An Interview with Google founder
• Official Google Blog: Fly me to the moon
• Google's moon shot • Google Blog • PC World story • More on Google
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On the Net:

X Prize Foundation, http://www.xprize.org
Lunar landing website, http://www.googlelunarxprize.org

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NASA

Hubble Observes a Planet Orbiting Another Star

» 'Fomalhauts location in the sky (more)


NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken the first visible-light snapshot of a planet circling another star. Estimated to be no more than three times Jupiter's mass, the planet, called Fomalhaut b, orbits the bright southern star Fomalhaut, located 25 light-years away in the constellation Piscis Australis, or the "Southern Fish."

Fomalhaut has been a candidate for planet hunting ever since an excess of dust was discovered around the star in the early 1980s by NASA's Infrared Astronomy Satellite, IRAS. In 2004, the coronagraph in the High Resolution Camera on Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys produced the first-ever resolved visible-light image of the region around Fomalhaut. It clearly showed a ring of protoplanetary debris approximately 21.5 billion miles across and having a sharp inner edge.

This large debris disk is similar to the Kuiper Belt, which encircles the solar system and contains a range of icy bodies from dust grains to objects the size of dwarf planets, such as Pluto. Hubble astronomer Paul Kalas, of the University of California at Berkeley, and team members proposed in 2005 that the ring was being gravitationally modified by a planet lying between the star and the ring's inner edge. Circumstantial evidence came from Hubble's confirmation that the ring is offset from the center of the star. The sharp inner edge of the ring is also consistent with the presence of a planet that gravitationally "shepherds" ring particles. Independent researchers have subsequently reached similar conclusions.


» Hubble photos the first extrasolar planet » ARD: Video


Now, Hubble has actually photographed a point source of light lying 1.8 billion miles inside the ring's inner edge. The results are being reported in the November 14 issue of Science magazine. "Our Hubble observations were incredibly demanding. Fomalhaut b is 1 billion times fainter than the star. We began this program in 2001, and our persistence finally paid off," Kalas says. "Fomalhaut is the gift that keeps on giving. Following the unexpected discovery of its dust ring, we have now found an exoplanet at a location suggested by analysis of the dust ring's shape. The lesson for exoplanet hunters is 'follow the dust,'" said team member Mark Clampin of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Observations taken 21 months apart by Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys' coronagraph show that the object is moving along a path around the star, and is therefore gravitationally bound to it. The planet is 10.7 billion miles from the star, or about 10 times the distance of the planet Saturn from our sun. The planet is brighter than expected for an object of three Jupiter masses. One possibility is that it has a Saturn-like ring of ice and dust reflecting starlight. The ring might eventually coalesce to form moons. The ring's estimated size is comparable to the region around Jupiter and its four largest orbiting satellites. Continued...
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» Spacecraft Hubble Gallery


• Weltraumteleskop Hubble knipst "Fomalhaut B" (germ)
• STSI: IAU Symposium 258: The Ages of Stars • The Hubble Legacy Archive (HLA)
• NewScientist: First images captured of alien solar system • Find Fomalhaut in the Celestial Sea

On the Net:

The Hubble Space Telescope: www.hubble.nasa.gov
Space Tel. Science Institute: www.stsci.edu/resources (more)
World Wide Telescopes: www.worldwidetelescopes.org
The Astro Observatory: www.archive.stsci.edu/astro » MAST Missions
Space & Technology News Alerts: www.aee.odu.edu/spacetechnewsalerts

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AP

Telescopes Capture First Images of Alien Planets
By Seth Borenstein, AP, Nov. 13, 2008


» Hubble News (more)


Earth seems to have its first fuzzy photos of alien planets outside our solar system. The images show four likely planets that appear as specks of white that are nearly indecipherable except to the most eagle-eyed astronomers. But it is evidence of the existence of something far more cosmic than a blurry dot. "It is a step on that road to understand if there are other planets like Earth and potentially life out there," said astronomer Bruce Macintosh of the Lawrence Livermore National Lab, one of two teams of out-of-this-solar system photographers.

None of the four giant gaseous planets are remotely habitable or remotely like Earth. But they raise the possibility of others more hospitable, and Macintosh said it's only a matter of time before "we get a dot that's blue and Earthlike." The two groups of astronomers -- one using the Hubble Space Telescope and the other using two ground telescopes -- have captured images of the exoplanets, which are what scientists call planets that don't circle our sun. Both studies were being published in Thursday's online edition of the journal Science.

In the past 13 years, scientists have discovered more than 300 planets outside our solar system, but they have done so indirectly, by measuring changes in gravity, speed or light around stars. NASA's space sciences chief Ed Weiler said the actual photos are important. He compared it to a hunt for elusive elephants: "For years we've been hearing the elephants, finding the tracks, seeing the trees knocked down by them, but we've never been able to snap a picture. Now we have a picture." There are disputes about whether these are the first exoplanet photos. Others have made earlier claims, but those pictures haven't been confirmed as planets or universally accepted yet.

The photos released Thursday are being published in a scientifically prominent journal, but that still hasn't convinced all the experts. Alan Boss, an exoplanet expert at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and Harvard exoplanet hunter Lisa Kaltenegger both said more study is needed to confirm these photos are proven planets and not just brown dwarf stars. Nevertheless, the new photos provide the best evidence so far, according to NASA and others. The Hubble team this spring compared a 2006 photo to one of the same body taken by Hubble in 2004. The scientists used that to show that this was an object orbiting a star -- making it less likely to be a dwarf star. Continued...
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Related articles:

• Floridatoday.com

• Advanced Imaging Mag: Did Hubble Find a Tenth Planet?
• ARD: Mit riesigem Aufwand suchen Astronomen nach fremdem Leben im All (germ)
• BR-online: Außerirdische Gäste Begrüßen oder verstecken? (germ) (more)
• ARD: Erste Fotos von Exoplaneten Weltraumteleskop Hubble knipst "Fomalhaut B" (germ)

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BBC

Exoplanets finally come into view
By BBC News, Nov. 13, 2008


» BBC: Video

- An artist's concept of the star Fomalhaut and the planet observed by Hubble Telescope


The first pictures of planets outside our Solar System have been taken, two groups report in the journal Science. Visible and infrared images have been snapped of a planet orbiting a star 25 light-years away. The planet is believed to be the coolest, lowest-mass object ever seen outside our own solar neighbourhood.

In a separate study, an exoplanetary system, comprising three planets, has been directly imaged, circling a star in the constellation Pegasus. While several claims have been made to such direct detection before, they have later been proven wrong or await confirmation. The search for exoplanets has up to now depended on detecting either the wobble they induce in their parent star or, if their orbits are side-on to telescopes, watching them dim the star's light as they pass in front of it. Being able to directly detect the light from these planets will allow astronomers to study their composition and atmospheres in detail.

• Ring cleaning

• Formalhaut b Planet


The difficulty for astronomers imaging exoplanets is that their parent star's light swamps them - like trying to spot a match next to a floodlight at a distance of a mile. But advances in optics and image processing have allowed astronomers to effectively subtract the bright light from stars, leaving behind light from the planets. That light can either come in the infrared, caused by the planets' heat, or be reflected starlight.

Paul Kalas of the University of California, Berkeley, led an international group that used the Hubble Space Telescope to image the region around a star called Fomalhaut in the constellation Piscis Austrinus. The star has a massive ring of dust surrounding it that appears to have a cleanly groomed inner edge. That is in keeping with what is known as accretion theory - that young planets gather up dust and matter as they orbit - and prompted the team to begin looking for the suspected planet in 2005.

The team estimates that the planet, designated Fomalhaut b, is some 18 billion kilometres (11 billion miles) away from its star, about as massive as Jupiter and completes an orbit in about 870 years. It may also have a ring around it. "I nearly had a heart attack at the end of May when I confirmed that Fomalhaut b orbits its parent star," Dr Kalas said. "It's a profound and overwhelming experience to lay eyes on a planet never before seen. Continued...




• Spaceflight News: Hubble Space Telescope: First Visible Wavelength Image of Extra-Solar Planet

- Comparison of Fomalhaut System and Solar System. Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI)

On the Net:
Extrasolar Planets: http://planetary.org/extrasolar_planets

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Reuters

Shuttle blasts off to upgrade space station
By Reuters staff, November 15, 2008





The space shuttle Endeavour soared off its seaside launch pad on Friday on a mission to upgrade the International Space Station for an expanded six-person crew. The shuttle's twin booster rockets ignited at 1955 EST (0055 GMT on Saturday), catapulting the 2 million-kg ship with a blinding light into the clear, moonlit sky at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

"It's our turn to take home improvement to a new level," shuttle commander Chris Ferguson radioed to flight controllers minutes before launch. The launch countdown went smoothly until 15 minutes before lift-off, when engineers noticed that a door on the launch pad alongside the shuttle was not properly fastened. But managers determined it would not be an issue and cleared the ship for flight. It was NASA's first launch in nearly six months and the 124th in shuttle programme history.


• Kennedy Space Center • NASA: KSC Webcams


Just nine more launches remain before NASA is scheduled to mothball the shuttles so it can develop safer and less expensive spaceships that will return astronauts to the Moon. NASA must first complete construction of the $100 billion space station, a project of 16 partner countries. The shuttle Endeavour's flight is intended to outfit the station for six full-time residents. It has been operating with half that number since assembly began a decade ago.

• New toilet

The shuttle carries two new sleeping compartments and a water recycling system so station crew members can purify urine and other waste water for drinking. "We did blind taste tests of the water," said NASA's Bob Bagdigian, the system's lead engineer. "Nobody had any strong objections. Other than a faint taste of iodine, it is just as refreshing as any other kind of water."

Endeavour also carries the station's first refrigerator, new exercise gear, and perhaps most important for a growing crew - a second toilet. "With six people, you really do need to have a two-bathroom house. It's a lot more convenient and a lot more efficient," said Endeavour astronaut Sandra Magnus, who will take over as a space station flight engineer from Greg Chamitoff.


» Karen Nyberg in Space » Photos / 2 / 3

- Mission Specialist Dr. Karen Nyberg displays Longhorn Pride in orange socks while working aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery.


Chamitoff has been aboard the outpost since the last shuttle flight in June. Reusing water will become essential once NASA retires its space shuttles, which produce water as a byproduct of their electrical systems. Rather than dumping the water overboard, NASA has been transferring it to the space station.

• Water recycling

But the shuttle's days are numbered. The nine remaining flights will include a final servicing call to the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA is preparing to end the programme in 2010, after which Russian Soyuz spacecraft will be the only way to ferry crew to the space station. "We can't be delivering water all the time for six crew," said space station flight director Ron Spencer. "Recycling is a must." Besides upgrading the space station's interior, the Endeavour crew will begin a marathon job to repair the station's solar power system.

A huge rotary joint that points solar power panels at the Sun is filled with metal shavings and must be cleaned up and greased. Four spacewalks are scheduled to tackle the problem, with as many as six more slated for future missions. In addition to Ferguson and Magnus, the crew includes pilot Eric Boe, spacewalkers Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, Stephen Bowen and Robert "Shane" Kimbrough and astronaut Donald Pettit, a former space station flight engineer. Endeavour is due back at the Kennedy Space Center on 29 November to close out the fourth and final mission of the year. (More...)

New Scientist: Purified urine to be astronauts' drinking water - Space shuttle Topic Guide - NASA: US should stick to Moon plan (more)
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• Aerial view of the Launch Complex at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center shows space shuttles on both pads • Web Photos • Space Photos..
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Related Articles:

» NASA TV live

• NASA: Space Shuttle Gallery - Photo, Audio, Video
• NASA: NASA Shuttle Carries Camera To Help Farmers
• NASA: Shuttle Endeavour Launches On Home Improvement Mission

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» ESA: Hubble scores a perfect ten » NASA: Image of the day gallery » Blog: Space Images of the Day (more)


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On the Net:
Hubble Space Telescope: Photos of the Cosmos located by Year, Category and Type

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Space.com

Ashes Travel to Heaven for Space Burial Aboard Rocket
By Andrew Bridges, 21 December 1999


» Space.com: Fly Me to the Moon ... Forever

- The general public may soon have the chance to rest in peace on the moon, at least briefly. Houston-based Celestis, Inc. has announced plans to launch cremated human remains to the surface of the moon as soon as 2009. (more...)


Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. - A clutch of tiny capsules was launched into orbit early Tuesday EST (20.9.1999) aboard a Taurus rocket, ferrying into space portions of the Earthly remains of 36 people for a flight that could span all of the next millennium. The launch aboard the Orbital Sciences Corp. rocket is the third and largest for Houston-based Celestis Inc., which gained renown in 1997 for sending aloft part of the cremated remains of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and counterculture legend Timothy Leary.

Tuesdays launch, piggybacked with a primary payload consisting of satellites built by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute and NASA, will jettison the 2-pound (1.2-kilogram) canister containing the capsules into low-Earth orbit. Christopher Pancheri, a Celestis spokesman, said the canister could remain in orbit for anywhere from 100 to 1,000 years before re-entering and burning up in the atmosphere. Each capsule contains just 0.245 ounces (7 grams) of cremated remains and bears a personalized message. "Be Among the Stars You Liked," reads one. "Have a Great Flight, Dad," is another.

Families pay about $5,000 for the privilege of sending their loved ones into orbit. Many of the deceased shared a deep interest in space, said Chan Tysor, Celestis president. "This is a way of symbolically fulfilling their dream of space flight," Tysor said. Ruby Coddington said before her son, Brian, died of muscular dystrophy in January 1998, he exacted a promise that a portion of his remains would be sent into orbit. "Being that he was sent to us from heaven, its only fitting hes going to go back up that way," Coddington said Monday.

The 23-year-old Barstow, Calif. man was a devoted Star Trek fan whose cousin is NASA astronaut Donald McMonagle, his mother said. Among the 35 other people whose remains are included in the flight are those of a dozen Japanese citizens. Tysor said his companys services seem popular with residents of the island nation, where cremation - a requirement for participation - is far more common than it is in the United States.
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Related articles:



Company offers moon as final resting place
Outthere: What It Costs To Launch Your Ashes Into Space
Space: Launch of Satellites and Human Ashes Is a Success

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The International Space Station: www.space-nasa.com/iss

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NASA

Mission STS-126: The Crew of the Space Shuttle Endeavour Prepares to Dock with the International Space Station
Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas, November 16, 2008





It's arrival day. The space shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to dock with
the International Space Station a little after 4 p.m. CST. Here one can
view photos of the seven members of space shuttle Endeavour's crew


Commander Chris Ferguson


Pilot Eric Boe


Pilot Eric Boe




- Astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, STS-126 mission specialist, attired in her shuttle launch and entry suit, is pictured on the middeck of Space Shuttle Endeavour during post launch activities. Credit: NASA




Astronaut Shane Kimbrough STS-126 mission specialist, attired in his shuttle launch and entry suit, is pictured on the middeck of Space Shuttle Endeavour during post launch activities.


Astronaut Sandra Magnus


Heidemarie S.-Piper


Astronaut Steve Bowen





Mission specialists Don Pettit




- Nov 18: Sandra Magnus, Expedition 18 flight engineer, and Greg Chamitoff, STS-126 mission specialist, work on the middeck of Space Shuttle Endeavour. Credit: NASA




(15 Nov. 2008) -- Astronaut Eric Boe, STS-126 pilot, looks over a checklist while working with controls on the aft flight deck of Space Shuttle Endeavour during flight day two activities. » More Photos: STS-126 Shuttle Mission Imagery





The seven members of shuttle Endeavour's crew, Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Eric Boe and mission specialists Don Pettit, Steve Bowen, Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, Shane Kimbrough and Sandra Magnus, were awakened at 8:25 a.m. CST for rendezvous and docking day. The wakeup music was 'Start Me Up' by the Rolling Stones. It was played for Magnus.

Endeavour's approach to the station includes a photo session. When the spacecraft is about 600 feet below the station, Ferguson will fly the spacecraft through the rendezvous pitch maneuver. That nine-minute backflip lets the station crew take high resolution photos of the shuttle's thermal protection system. Station Expedition 18 Commander Mike Fincke will use a digital camera with an 800 mm lens and Flight Engineer Greg Chamitoff will have a camera with a 400 mm lens.

From windows of the station's Zvezda service module they will take as many as 300 photos, which will be analyzed by engineers to make sure the thermal protection system is safe for re-entry. Ferguson, with help from the rest of the crew, will then fly Endeavour to a point about 400 feet in front of the station. There he will begin the final approach, at about a tenth of a foot per second. He will keep the docking mechanisms aligned to a three-inch tolerance as Endeavour moves to a docking with Pressurized Mating Adaptor 2 at the forward end of the station's Harmony node

Shortly after docking, hatch opening and a safety briefing, Magnus will become a member of the Expedition 18 crew. She and station Flight Engineer Yury Lonchakov will install her custom seat liner in the Soyuz TMA spacecraft docked to the station. At that time, Chamitoff will become a member of the Endeavour crew. Transfer of equipment and supplies between Endeavour and the station is scheduled to begin about three hours after docking. The crew is scheduled to go to bed at 12:25 a.m. Monday and be awakened at 8:25 a.m. The next shuttle status report will be issued at the end of the crew day, or earlier if events warrant.

NASA: Space Shuttle Endeavour docked with International Space Station
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On the Net:

» STS-126 Mission Coverage


» Interspacenews.com » NASA: Mission 126 Photos


» Space Center: Map and Sattelite view

» Spaceandastronauticsnews.com - Johnson Space Center - NASA: Budget Information 2009 - Discussion Blog