Posts Tagged ‘Space’

During the first spacewalk of STS-126 mission, astronauts have lost a tool bag.  The tool bag accidentally slipped away from astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper's hand while she was repairing the joint of a solar panel of the International Space Station on Tuesday. The briefcase-sized ... Full story

On Friday, India's first Moon Impact Probe (MIP) successfully landed on the lunar surface. The instrument, about the size of a computer monitor and painted in the tricolour, touched moon surface about 25 minutes after being detached from India's first unmanned spacecraft Chandrayaan-1. This is a historic moment for India's 45-year-old space programme.... Full story

US space agency NASA's Hubble Telescope has captured for the first time pictures of a planet circling another star outside of our solar system. About three times the Jupiter's mass, the planet - Fomalhaut b - orbits the bright southern star Fomalhaut, which is located at 25 light-years away in the constellation Piscis Australis or the "Southern Fish". Take a look at the ... Full story

On Saturday, India's first unmanned spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 entered the lunar orbit after ISRO scientists successfully carried out a highly complex and tricky manoeuvre crossing another historic milestone in India's space programme. With this, India becomes the fifth country to send a spacecraft to the moon after the US, former Soviet Union, Japan and China.... Full story

India's Chandrayaan-1 is moving towards the moon and all it's components are working nicely. On October 29, 2008, the Terrain Mapping camera (TMC) on board Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft was successfully operated through a series of commands issued from the Spacecraft Control Centre of ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) at Bangalore, India.... Full story

On Wednesday morning, India launched it's first unmanned moon mission, marking a new milestone in the country's space programme. The unmanned lunar orbiting spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 (Moon vehicle) was launched with an Indian-built rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, about 100 km north of the southern Indian city of Chennai.... Full story

US space agency NASA said that it has encountered problems with the Hubble space telescope following a remote switchover from the failed system to an on-board redundant system. Now the 18-year-old observatory might remain inactive until astronauts from Earth arrive with a replacement part next year. On Wednesday, flight ... Full story

Richard Garriott, an American computer game designer reached space on Sunday to fulfill his childhood dream that began with the flight of his astronaut father. The Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft carrying Richard Garriott and Expedition 18 Commander Michael Fincke, Flight Engineer Yury V. Lonchakov blasted off on Sunday, Oct. 12, 2008, from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.... Full story

A German team of astrophysicists says that observations of a special class of variable stars resolves a dispute about the rotation of our Milky Way galaxy. The scientists said that their observations imply the rotation of the Milky Way is simpler than previously thought, and is symmetrical about an axis. Led by Nicolas Nardetto of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy ... Full story

A problem with one of the Hubble Space Telescope's computers prompted NASA to delay next month's shuttle Atlantis maintenance mission until February next year. Earlier, the Hubble maintenance mission had been targeted for takeoff on October 14. On September 27, Hubble's Control Unit/Science Data Formatter - Side A started to show problems in ... Full story