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A political stalemate that threatened to boot the United States off the International Space Station eased on Thursday after U.S. lawmakers passed an exemption allowing NASA to buy rides from the Russians, agency officials said. (snip) The Soyuz capsules are the only available vehicles capable of ferrying people to and from the station aside from the U.S. space shuttles, which are being retired in two years. Soyuz capsules also serve as the space station's lifeboats.

NEW YORK - Should this world ever cease to exist, Stephen Colbert will live on. "I am thrilled to have my DNA shot into space, as this brings me one step closer to my lifelong dream of being the baby at the end of 2001"

A computer virus is alive and well on the International Space Station (ISS). Nasa has confirmed that laptops carried to the ISS in July were infected with a virus known as Gammima.AG. The worm was first detected on Earth in August 2007 and lurks on infected machines waiting to steal login names for popular online games. Nasa said it was not the first time computer viruses had travelled into space and it was investigating how the machines were infected. Orbital outbreak Space news website SpaceRef broke the story about the virus on the laptops that astronauts took to the ISS....

Here's a scenario that might be going through the minds of NASA astronaut Greg Chamitoff and his two fellow Russian crew members on the International Space Station (ISS). Lawmakers warned this week that escalating tensions with Russia may leave the U.S. without ready transport to the ISS after NASA retires the space shuttle fleet in 2010. The space agency does not expect the shuttle's replacement, the Orion—an Apollo-like craft being developed as part of the Constellation program—to be ready to fly until 2015. NASA's plan was for the interim was to use Russian Soyuz craft (left) to send up crew...

Love is in the air: Amazing images of clouds from space By Daily Mail Reporter Last updated at 4:02 PM on 21st June 2008This is what earth looks like from above. And the spectacular pictures taken from 200 miles... Astronauts on the International Space Station took the snaps while travelling at 17,000 miles per hour during one of its 15 daily orbits.... Love is in the air over a Mexican islandThey show the complex meterological systems from an angle seen by a select few. Images include towering clouds, dust storms, lightening and a host of other meterological occurances. Astronauts are...

It was a good mission and I'm glad to see the ISS is taking shape. As for the object, not a big deal. My advice for everyone here, before going crazy over something minor or if something goes wrong, listen to NASA, not the media.

Mission controllers at NASA are discussing a possible problem with space shuttle Discovery on Friday. Astronauts said they noticed a shiny, rectangular-shaped object trailing the shuttle after a rocket was fired. NASA officials said they're analyzing video and photos to determine if the part came from the shuttle or cargo bay. They're hoping to determine if it could pose a problem for the crew during the re-entry and landing on Saturday morning.

I saw the ISS/Space Shuttle combo pass over Illinois tonight.

Two weeks after the only toilet broke aboard the international space station, Russian Mission Control has some welcome news for astronauts: You can "start using it." Wednesday's successful repair job came thanks to a 35-pound pump delivered by the space shuttle Discovery. A cosmonaut spent hours installing the device and was told to report later on how well the toilet works.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- Space shuttle Discovery performed a slow back flip and then docked at the international space station Monday, delivering a mammoth lab and two new occupants: a NASA astronaut and Buzz Lightyear. Commander Mark Kelly pulled up to the space station and parked as the two spacecraft soared 210 miles above the South Pacific. Discovery carried Japan's prized Kibo lab, a 37-foot-long, 16-ton scientific workshop. The seven shuttle astronauts and three station residents will combine forces to install the bus-size lab on Tuesday. The shuttle crew also brought a spare toilet pump for the orbiting outpost....

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - After being rushed in from Russia, a toilet pump was loaded into space shuttle Discovery on Thursday just in time for this weekend's liftoff to the international space station, where the lone commode is acting up. A NASA employee based in Moscow hand-carried the pump on a commercial flight that touched down Wednesday night. Within hours, the pump and related equipment were packed away aboard Discovery. Discovery is scheduled to blast off Saturday on a 14-day mission. The main delivery item is a 37-foot-long Japanese lab; it will be the biggest room once installed at the...

The international space station has a plumbing problem: the lone toilet is broken. So NASA may make an in-orbit plumbing service call when space shuttle Discovery visits next week.

Space shuttle Discovery will be loaded with spare parts to fix the main toilet in the Russian segment of the International Space Station; the vacuum-powered urine-collection device failed after repeated attempts to fix it last week. The three crew members on the station, a U.S. astronaut and two cosmonauts, are using the toilet in the Soyuz module. The situation could become problematic when Discovery arrives next week, and 10 people are required to share the toilet on the tiny Soyuz, which is a Russian capsule also designated to be used at an emergency escape lifeboat. The shuttle's toilet, however, could...

From spaceweather.com for Monday, May 19, 2008: The 2008 "ISS Marathon" gets underway this week when the International Space Station spends three days (May 21-23) in almost-constant sunlight. Sky watchers in Europe and North America can see the bright spaceship gliding overhead two to four times each night. Please try our new and improved Simple Satellite Tracker to find out when to look. The station is not only bright and easy to see with the naked eye, but also it makes a fine target for backyard telescopes: "I took these pictures during the early morning hours of May 12th using...

The crew of the Soyuz capsule that landed in Kazakhstan hundreds of kilometers off-target after an unexpectedly severe descent was in serious danger, a Russian news agency reported Tuesday. Interfax quoted an unidentified space official as saying that the capsule entered the atmosphere improperly, with the hatch-first, instead of with its heat shields leading the way. As a result, the hatch suffered significant damage. The official said the TMA-11 capsule's antenna burned up during the descent, meaning the crew couldn't communicate properly with Russian Mission Control. Also damaged was part of the valve that equalizes pressure inside and outside the...

MOSCOW — The crew of the Soyuz capsule that landed hundreds of miles off target in Kazakhstan last weekend was in serious danger during the descent, a Russian news agency reported today. Interfax quoted an unidentified space official as saying the capsule entered Earth's atmosphere with the hatch first instead of with its heat shields leading the way. As a result, the hatch suffered significant damage. The official also said the TMA-11 capsule's antenna burned up during Saturday's descent, meaning the crew couldn't communicate properly with Russian Mission Control. The Soyuz crew included U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson, South Korea's first...

MOSCOW - A Russian capsule carrying South Korea's first astronaut touched down 260 miles off target in northern Kazakhstan on Saturday after hurtling through the atmosphere in a bone-jarring descent from the international space station. It was the second time in a row — and the third since 2003 — that the Soyuz landing went awry. Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin said the condition of the crew — South Korean bioengineer Yi So-yeon, American astronaut Peggy Whitson and Russian flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko — was satisfactory, though the three had been subjected to severe gravitational forces during the re-entry. The...

the Russian Soyuz capsule that ferried them back from the international space station made a very steep re-entry, known as a "ballistic re-entry," and landed 260 miles off course on Saturday morning. Mission Control in Moscow reported all three were in satisfactory condition although the ride home subjected their bodies to severe G-forces, up to 10 times the normal force of gravity. Besides being far off course, the landing was about 20 minutes later than planned.

Cape Canaveral FL (SPX) Apr 17, 2008 The cargo aboard the space shuttle Discovery on mission STS-124 already has traveled halfway around Earth, more than 10,000 miles over land and sea. It's now ready for the culmination of its 23-year journey to the International Space Station. Hope will take flight on Discovery. Or rather, the centerpiece of Kibo, a laboratory complex named for the Japanese word for hope, will take flight. STS-124 will launch the main segment of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's - or JAXA's - station laboratory. Kibo's Japanese Pressurized Module, or JPM, is 14.4 feet in diameter...

If you have ever wondered what they have built at the space station...have a look .... This is a great animation showing all the segments of the Space Station, the modules and the international partners that have helped create it. This is what we've been hauling in Shuttle flights for the past several years! This is far more complex and larger than most people know about...

The space shuttle Endeavour and the international space station will be visible to Antelope Valley residents early each morning for more than a week beginning Sunday. The Endeavour mission, to deliver the first component of a Japanese science laboratory and a Canadian robotic system to the station, is scheduled to end with a landing at 5:33 p.m. Wednesday, March 26, in Florida. The shuttle-space station combination will look like a very bright star moving steadily as they arc through the sky. If no variations are made to the flight plan, the only evening sighting of the shuttle and space station...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Space shuttle Endeavour pulled up to the international space station and docked Wednesday, kicking off almost two weeks of demanding construction work. Before the late-night linkup, Endeavour's commander, Dominic Gorie, guided the shuttle through a 360-degree backflip to allow for full photographic surveillance. It's one of the many safety-related procedures put in place following the Columbia tragedy in 2003. The space station crew used cameras with high-powered zoom lenses to photograph Endeavour from nose to tail, especially all the thermal tiles on its belly. The pictures — as many as 300 — will be scrutinized by...

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/

Endeavour astronauts inspected the space shuttle's heat shield Wednesday, while NASA puzzled over a mysterious piece of debris that may have struck the shuttle's nose just after launch. Officials at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas refused to speculate on the origin or even the size of the debris captured on camera 10 seconds after launch. Nor are they sure if it struck the shuttle. "It looks like it's not coming from the orbiter, and you can't really tell if it strikes the orbiter or not," flight director Mike Moses told reporters after viewing video of the debris. "I...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA's space shuttle Endeavour is on track to light the predawn Florida sky ablaze early Tuesday as it rockets toward the International Space Station (ISS) with seven astronauts on board. Led by commander Dominic Gorie, Endeavour's STS-123 crew will install the first piece of Japan's three-part Kibo laboratory, assemble a monstrous, two-armed Canadian robot and deliver a suite of on-orbit experiments during their mission. The shuttle is counting down toward a planned 2:28 a.m. EDT (0628 GMT) launch on Tuesday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Gorie and his crew plan to spend...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space shuttle Endeavour was poised for a rare nighttime launch Tuesday to the international space station and the longest visit ever to the orbiting outpost. With no major problems reported, NASA began fueling the shuttle late Monday afternoon. Good weather was forecast for the 2:28 a.m. liftoff. The odds were 90 percent in NASA's favor. It will be the first shuttle launch in darkness since 2006; only a quarter of all shuttle flights have begun at nighttime. It also will be NASA's longest space station mission: 16 days.

KOUROU, French Guiana (AFP) — The European Space Agency on Sunday carried out the maiden launch of a massive robot freighter designed to rendezvous automatically with the orbital space station. The Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), a nearly 20-tonne payload the size of a London double-decker bus, blasted into the skies aboard a beefed-up Ariane 5 launcher, an AFP reporter saw. After being placed in orbit, the cylinder-shaped craft will deploy its solar panels and gently find its way to the International Space Station (ISS) and berth with it. The launch had initially been scheduled for Saturday but was postponed for...

Space freighter primed for launch By Jonathan Amos Science reporter, BBC News The development of Europe's ATV has taken 11 years Mission Guide: Jules Verne Europe is set to launch the biggest, most sophisticated spacecraft in its history. The Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) is an unmanned ship that can carry up to 7.6 tonnes of supplies to the International Space Station (ISS). Its other primary role is to push the orbiting outpost higher into the sky to keep it from falling back to Earth. The ATV will launch on an Ariane 5 rocket from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana...

I saw not only Atlantis and the International Space Station flyover my neighborhood tonight, but I also saw the spy satellite scheduled for missile destruction on Thursday/ Michelle Obama, eat your heart out. This is one proud American.

Space Weather News for Feb. 17, 2008 http://spaceweather.com DOUBLE FLYBY: If all goes according to plan, space shuttle Atlantis will undock from the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday morning, Feb. 18th, at approximately 4:30 am EST. This is good news for sky watchers across North America who will be able to witness a rare double flyby on Monday evening. Atlantis and the ISS will appear as a tight pair of lights, as bright as Jupiter or Venus, gliding in tandem across the twilight sky--an unforgettable sight. Favored cities include Los Angeles, New Orleans, Dallas, Jackson (MS), Pensacola, Philadelphia, Reno,...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The crews of the space shuttle and station said a teary farewell, then sealed the hatches between them Sunday after more than a week of working tirelessly together to build a bigger and better scientific outpost in orbit. Atlantis was scheduled to undock early Monday, its load considerably lighter than when it arrived Feb. 9 with Europe's premiere space laboratory, Columbus. Astronaut Daniel Tani was especially emotional as he left the international space station, his home for the past four months. Before floating into Atlantis for his long-overdue ride home, Tani paid tribute to his mother,...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Astronauts aboard the International Space Station apparently have access to a gun. Russian Cosmonauts carry a gun on their Soyuz space capsule, which is attached to the space station. Every spacecraft carries survival gear for crash landings, and the Russian Soyuz has a kit that includes the gun. A photo of a space tourist using one version of the weapon is posted on his Web site. But although the gun has been there for as long as the space station has been in orbit, its existence is kept quiet. NASA and Russian officials won't talk publicly...

Drudge has link up that German astronaut is ill. No details, and no news source up yet.

<p>Press conference just concluded (15:31 hrs CDT) today. Very contentious questions about the health of a space-walker, delay of space walk due to illness, and overall health of crew(s).</p>

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - After two months of delay, shuttle Atlantis blasted off Thursday with Europe's gift to the international space station, a $2 billion science lab named Columbus that spent years waiting to set sail. Atlantis and its seven-man crew roared away from their seaside launch pad at 2:45 p.m., overcoming fuel gauge problems that thwarted back- to-back launch attempts in December. The same cold front that spawned killer tornadoes across the South earlier in the week stayed far enough away and, in the end, cut NASA a break. All week, bad weather had threatened to delay the...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The space shuttle Atlantis is tentatively set to launch February 7 on a mission to the International Space Station carrying the European lab Columbus, NASA said. "The team did a great job to isolate where (the cutting engine sensor) failure were (so that) the failure would not occur again," Bill Gerstenmayer, deputy administrator for space programs told reporters Wednesday. Gerstenmayer said that as "we head for the 7th of February for launch and we continue to follow the radiator retract hose over the next couple of days; there is a lot of work out to be done...

Lombard astronaut Daniel Tani today called his deceased mother his “hero” and said he was aware of the possibility that a family tragedy could strike while he was in space. In a statement released by NASA, Tani thanked “everyone who has expressed their condolences during this time of grieving for me and my family.” Tani’s 90-year-old mother Rose was killed on Wednesday after she drove her car onto railroad tracks in Lombard and was struck by a freight train. He will not be able to return to Earth for weeks. “Living on the [International Space Station] means I experience all...

Stuck in space, Lombard astronaut Daniel Tani is unable to grieve with his family over the death of their mother, who was killed by a train Wednesday. Tani, aboard the international space station, is weeks away from returning home, but family members said they are attempting to arrange for a weekend service to be beamed to the astronaut by video conference. Rose Shegino Tani, 90, who endured more than two years in a World War II internment camp for Japanese Americans, was often cited by her son as his inspiration for success. She was killed when she drove around railroad...

NASA Concerned ABC World News Vanity

(WASHINGTON, DC) Astronaut Scott Parazynski did more than perform emergency surgery on a torn solar panel on the International Space Station today. At the end of his spacewalk, almost as an afterthought, he reached out with a 90-foot robotic arm and boom extension, and deftly snagged a strand of twine dangling from a mysterious bundle of space debris. “Yee haw,” was all that earthbound controllers could hear Parazynsky say into his space helmet at that moment. However, Col. Douglas H. Wheelock, giving visual cues to Parazynsky during what officials have termed the most dangerous spacewalk in history, shouted something else:...

Physician-astronaut Scott Parazynski, working on the end of a boom carried by the space station's robot arm, successfully repaired a mangled solar array today, cutting away a snarled guidewire, installing five suture-like braces and then standing by while his crewmates extended the array its full 110-foot length. Working with deliberate care, astronaut Dan Tani, sending commands from a computer inside the shuttle-station complex, extended the array's central mast a half bay at a time, stopping and letting Parazynski assess the health of the repairs as tension slowly built up on the just-installed braces. There were no problems and as the...

HOUSTON - Spacewalking astronauts bolted a solar power tower to the international space station on Tuesday, completing an ambitious three-day moving process that ended with elation when the beam's giant solar panels began to unfurl. Their joy turned to concern, however, when a rip was spotted in the second solar panel. NASA needs to get the tower up and running to prevent malfunctioning station equipment from delaying the addition of a much-anticipated European research lab. A massive rotary joint is supposed to make sure the solar panel wings on the right side of the space station are facing the sun....

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Astronauts added a new room to the international space station on Friday in the way of Harmony. That's the name of the school bus-size compartment that was attached by a team of spacewalkers working outside and robot arm operators working inside. "I don't know that anybody's ever told our crew that we bring harmony with us, but we sure bring fun," Discovery's commander, Pamela Melroy, said as the spacewalk ended and the congratulations began. The Italian-built Harmony — 24 feet long and 31,000 pounds — was unloaded from the shuttle's payload bay and hoisted into place...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - A giant leap is about to be made for womankind. When space shuttle Discovery blasts off Tuesday, a woman will be sitting in the commander’s seat. And up at the international space station, a female skipper will be waiting to greet her. It will be the first time in the 50-year history of spaceflight that two women are in charge of two spacecraft at the same timeThis is no public relations gimmick cooked up by NASA. It’s coincidence, which pleases shuttle commander Pamela Melroy and station commander Peggy Whitson.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The next mission of the space shuttle Discovery set for liftoff Tuesday is critical to building the International Space Station, ferrying in the Harmony module key to installing the European lab Columbus and Japan's Kibo lab. Harmony, a big Italian-made aluminum tube weighing in at 14.3 tonnes, will connect the two labs to the outpost and give it its almost final shape. NASA plans to bring in the Columbus on an Atlantis shuttle flight December 6 and the Kibo early in 2008. Discovery's crew of seven includes five men and two women, one of whom is Commander...

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan - A crew that includes Malaysia's first astronaut and an American who will become the first woman to command the international space station prepared Monday for blastoff later this week. The Soyuz-FG rocket is scheduled to blast off from the Central Asian steppe on Wednesday night to take Malaysia's Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, Peggy Whitson of Beaconsfield, Iowa, and Russian Yuri Malenchenko into orbit. During his 12-day space trip, Shukor is to study of the effects of microgravity and space radiation on cells and microbes, as well as experiments with proteins for a potential HIV vaccine. The rocket —...

The Russian rocket due to take Malaysia's first astronaut into orbit was raised into position on Monday ready for a launch seen by Malaysian officials as a national milestone. The 50-metre (160-foot) Soyuz rocket bearing the Malaysian, Russian and US flags was eased out of its hangar by a train locomotive for the five-kilometre (three-mile) journey to its launch pad as the sun broke over the horizon at Baikonur cosmodrome. Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, a doctor and part-time model, is to blast off on Wednesday to the International Space Station (ISS) with Russian cosmonaut Yury Malenchenko and American Peggy Whitson. "I...

The first photo, one of five for this scene snapped on 2007 August 20, is via the astronauts aboard the International Space Station (Expedition 15). The second picture was taken at Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station (Niagara Falls Air Base), New York on 2006 October 4. More information, especially for that top (NASA/ISS) photo, at http://ChamorroBible.org/gpw/gpw-20061021.htm

This is will be the official Space Shuttle Endeavour Landing Thread.

The space shuttle Endeavour left the International Space Station (ISS) a day ahead of schedule and has started its journey home to get the jump on what looks to be a diminishing threat from Hurricane Dean. The spaceship, which launched on August 8, is set to land at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on Tuesday (US time), a day earlier than planned. NASA had ordered the early return on fears Dean could turn toward the Texas coast and Johnson Space Centre, home of Mission Control, in Houston. But forecasters say the storm is instead on a collision course with Mexico....