NASA

April 25, 2007 -- VANDENBERG, Calif. - NASA's Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) spacecraft, the first mission dedicated to the exploration of mysterious ice clouds that dot the edge of space in Earth's polar regions, successfully launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., at 1:26 p.m. PDT on Wednesday, April 25.

The mission will study clouds that are noctilucent, meaning they can be seen from the ground only at night, when they are illuminated by sunlight no longer visible from the Earth's surface.    » read more »

April 25, 2007 -- WASHINGTON - Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh will visit NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., on Tuesday, May 8. The tour of Goddard is occurring near the end of the queen's visit to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown settlement in Virginia.    » read more »

April 24, 2007 -- BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. - On Tuesday, NASA announced the selection of Xerox Corporation of Washington to provide multifunctional device support, supplies and maintenance to all NASA centers and associated facilities. The maximum potential value of the contract is $35 million.

The firm-fixed price, performance-based contract with indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity delivery task orders is for a three-year period with two, one-year option periods.    » read more »

April 20, 2007 -- WASHINGTON - NASA has modified its contract with Lockheed Martin Corp. of Littleton, Colo., to design, test and build the Orion crew exploration vehicle.

The updated contract contains three significant changes. Two years have been added to the design phase. Two test flights of Orion's launch abort system have been added. And production of a pressurized cargo carrier for the International Space Station has been deleted from the initial design phase.    » read more »

April 20, 2007 -- EDWARDS, Calif. - NASA has awarded a contract to The Boeing Company, St. Louis, for engineering and technical support of several specialized research aircraft at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center.

The sole-source, indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract may be worth up to $28 million during its five-year performance period now through April 2012.    » read more »

April 20, 2007 -- HOUSTON - The crew members aboard the International Space Station spent this week finalizing handover operations, conducting experiments and preparing for the departure of the Expedition 14 crew.

Expedition 14 Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin, accompanied by Spaceflight Participant Charles Simonyi, are targeted to touch down in central Kazakhstan in their Soyuz spacecraft at 7:30 a.m. CDT Saturday, April 21, one day later than originally planned.    » read more »

April 18, 2007 -- WASHINGTON - The 14th crew of the International Space Station, Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin, along with Spaceflight Participant Charles Simonyi, will land at 8:30 a.m. EDT Saturday, April 21 in Kazakhstan.

The return of the Soyuz spacecraft was delayed a day, and the landing site was moved farther south. The Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, made the decisions to avoid wet conditions at the original landing site that could have interfered with recovery helicopter operations.    » read more »

April 16, 2007 -- HOUSTON - During a meeting Monday at NASA's Johnson Space Center, agency officials revised the target launch dates for space shuttle flights during the next 12 months. The space shuttle and International Space Station programs agreed to the changes during a meeting to evaluate options following the STS-117 mission's delay, which was caused by hail damage to the external fuel tank.    » read more »

April 16, 2007 -- WASHINGTON - NASA has entered into an agreement with the U.S. Air Force to support abort flight test requirements for the Orion Project. The Air Force has contracted with Orbital Sciences Corp. of Chandler, Ariz., to provide launch services for the flight tests.    » read more »

April 13, 2007 -- HOUSTON - The crew members aboard the International Space Station were busy this week with handover operations from the Expedition 14 residents to the newly arrived Expedition 15 crew.

Expedition 15 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov arrived at the station Monday after a Saturday launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. With them on their Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft was Spaceflight Participant Charles Simonyi, a U.S. businessman flying under a contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency.    » read more »

April 13, 2007 -- WASHINGTON - After studying Mars four times as long as originally planned, NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter appears to have succumbed to battery failure caused by a complex sequence of events involving the onboard computer memory and ground commands.

The causes were released today in a preliminary report by an internal review board. The board was formed to look more in-depth into why NASA's Mars Global Surveyor went silent in November 2006 and recommend any processes or procedures that could increase safety for other spacecraft.    » read more »