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08:27 Bill Gates considering space tourist trek to ISS MORE...

KOROLYOV, Russia - A Russian-built Soyuz capsule docked at the international space station late Monday, two days after blasting off from the Baikonur cosmodrome with U.S. billionaire Charles Simonyi and two Russian cosmonauts aboard. Once the capsule is secured to the station, it will take roughly two hours before the Soyuz crew are able to open the air locks and greet face-to-face the station's current crew — Russian Mikhail Tyurin and American astronauts Miguel Lopez-Alegria and Sunita Williams. Simonyi shelled out $20-25 million to be the world's fifth paying private space traveler. The arrival of a new crew is always...

Feb 4, 2007 — CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Two astronauts left the International Space Station on Sunday to finish hooking up a new cooling system that will pave the way for installation of European and Japanese modules beginning this year. Station commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and flight engineer Sunita Williams left the station's Quest airlock at 8:38 a.m. EST (1338 GMT) for the planned 6-1/2 hour spacewalk. It was the second of three planned spacewalks over nine days, the most ambitious station assembly work ever attempted without a U.S. space shuttle crew present. Lopez-Alegria and Williams, both U.S. astronauts, will...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Fresh from the success of an impromptu spacewalk, shuttle Discovery's astronauts awoke Tuesday to the strains of "Zamboni" by the Gear Daddies and got ready to undock from the international space station. "We can't offer you a Zamboni to drive today," said Mission Control astronaut Shannon Lucid, referring to the ice rink machine immortalized in the Minnesota band's country rock song. "But if you look at today's flight plan, you will see that we are offering you the opportunity to fly the shuttle for half a lap flyaround. That's not a bad tradeoff." Space shuttle Discovery's...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA began retracting via remote control a 115-foot solar panel on the international space station Wednesday, likening the tricky task to folding a road map back up and stuffing it in the glove compartment. The electricity-generating solar array served as a temporary power source aboard the orbiting outpost. NASA needed to move it out of the way so that a new, permanent pair of solar wings could rotate in the direction of the sun. The folding-up began shortly before 1:30 p.m. EST and was expected to take about five hours. A crease developed when the array...

A violent solar explosion sent a dangerous wave of radiation through space late Tuesday, prompting NASA to order the crews of Discovery and the International Space Station to take shelter overnight, according to Local 6 News partner Florida Today. The solar flare erupted around 9:40 p.m., unleashing enough radiation to disrupt radio communications on Earth and in orbit while endangering astronauts circling 220 miles above the planet.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - After a two-day journey, space shuttle Discovery reached the international space station Monday for a weeklong stay to continue construction on the orbiting lab and rotate out a crew member. Discovery commander Mark Polansky closed in on the station at a tenth of a foot per second before latches automatically linked the spacecraft as they flew 220 miles above southeast Asia during a sunrise. "Capture confirmed," Polansky told Mission Control and the space station. About an hour before docking, Discovery did a slow back flip so the space station crew could photograph its belly for any...

Russian Golf Event Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin tees off from the space station during the Expedition 14 spacewalk. Click 'View this Video' at the link.

MOSCOW — Russia's space agency announced Tuesday that Dallas-area businesswoman Anousheh Ansari will fly to the International Space Station next month. Russian news agencies say she'll be the first woman to make a paid voyage to the station. Ansari, a native of Iran, is a co-founder of Richardson-based company Telecom Technologies.

Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace's inflatable, habitable space complex technology demonstrator, Genesis I, has been successfully deployed and is transmitting data from its 550km (341miles) altitude, 64° inclination orbit, writes Rob Coppinger. An International Space Company Kosmotras Dnepr rocket launched the spacecraft at 14:54GMT from Russia's Yasny base on 12 July. Once in orbit, the spacecraft, based on NASA-developed technology, inflated itself, deployed its solar arrays and transmitted data to Bigelow Aerospace's mission control centre in Houston. "The internal battery is reporting a full charge of 26V, which leads us to believe that the solar arrays have deployed," says Bigelow Aerospace....

An inflatable spacecraft designed to test technology for a future space hotel is to be launched from Russia on Wednesday. "Everything is on track and scheduled for launch," Robert Bigelow told New Scientist in a prepared statement. Bigelow is the founder of Bigelow Aerospace in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, which is behind the inflatable test vehicle. Called Genesis I, it is set to launch from Russia's Dombarovsky missile base in Siberia. If all goes well, it will be blasted into an orbit 550 kilometres above the Earth. Once there, it will inflate to its full size of 3 metres by...

Two views from the Space Station of a short minor eruption from Cleveland Volcano: Smaller image below: click for the bigger one:

Last month’s failure of a test of a pair of rocket engines on the International Space Station has taught a whole series of unexpected lessons and has answered questions that the station’s operators hadn’t even intended to ask. Yet since nothing actually happened, a senior NASA spokesman said it was a “non-story”. But that’s nowhere near the truth. The incident and repercussions of it further underscore that operating a space facility as complex and poorly documented as the ISS is an irremediably non-deterministic process. That is, anything can happen, at any time—and blindside everybody involved.

BREMEN, Germany (AFP) - Engineers formally handed over the Columbus science module, the European Space Agency's biggest contribution to the problem-dogged International Space Station (ISS). The 13-tonne lab was transferred to ESA at a ceremony attended in this northern German city, where a small army of technicians had spent four years fitting out its shell with control, communications and research equipment. German Chancellor Angela Merkel praised the scheme as a "fascinating example" of European cooperation in hi-tech. Columbus, in gestation for 10 years and costing around a billion euros (1.25 billion dollars), is designed to enable European scientists to carry...

The International Space Station (ISS) failed to reach a higher orbit Wednesday during a test of two long-dormant engines mounted near a Russian-built docking port. Russian ISS flight controllers hoped to test two engines along the aft end of the station's Zvezda service module during a 14-second burn planned for 3:49 p.m. EDT (1949 GMT), NASA officials said. The engines have not been fired since Zvezda docked at the ISS in July 2000, they added. "We were all set for it but the engines never fired," NASA spokesperson Rob Navias told SPACE.com. The two dormant Zvezda engines are located at...

CAPE CANAVERAL - A spacewalking Russian cosmonaut plans to hit a golf shot outside the International Space Station this summer as part of a publicity campaign that already has raised safety concerns. Clad in a cumbersome spacesuit and anchored to a specially designed tee box, Pavel Vinogradov will hit a six-iron drive along side the station's Russian segment, taking great care not to hook the ball into the outpost. ...

The past efforts of America’s space agency to develop a viable method of harnessing the undisputed power of free enterprise have, by general consensus, failed. The reasons include the fact that NASA is a government agency and thus subject to strong political pressure, as well as to sets of regulations that can make a brave man’s knees knock. Its mission is an exploration and research effort designed to fulfill several unarticulated goals, from national prestige to nurturing a cadre of scientists and engineers who have the skills and experience needed to work on any emergency military projects. Despite past failures,...

Did you ever want to participate in a International Space Station mission? Starting Friday, February 3rd, you may get your chance. An old, used Russian spacesuit has been transformed into a most unusual earth orbit satellite. Just add one Kenwood TH-K2AT handi-talkie transceiver, a battery pack, a sensor for temperature readings, a compact voice synthesizer and telemetry device and a small helmet-mounted antenna and you are good to go. The modified spacesuit will be thrust out of the space station into orbit and will begin broadcasting voice messages and slow scan television on 145.990 MHz FM in the two-meter amateur...

NASA is challenging U.S. industry to establish capabilities and services that can open new space markets and support the crew and cargo transportation needs of the International Space Station.

HONG KONG – Fresh from its second manned space mission, China's space program wants to be able to put a man on the moon and build a space station in 15 years, an official said Sunday. "I think in about 10 to 15 years, we will have the ability to build our own space station and to carry out a manned moon landing," said Hu Shixiang, deputy commander of China's manned space flight program. But the goal is subject to getting enough funds from the government, Hu said, explaining that the space program must fit in the larger scheme of...