Endeavour into the Night Credit: NASA, Jerry Cannon, Rusty Backer
Posted on 03/14/2008 2:43:47 PM PDT by sig226
Explanation: Blasting into a dark night sky, the Space Shuttle Endeavour began its latest journey to orbit in the early morning hours of March 11. In this stunning picture following the launch, the glare from Endeavour's three main rocket engines and flanking solid fuel booster rockets illuminates the orbiter's tail section and the large, orange external fuel tank. Embarking on mission STS-123, Endeavour left Kennedy Space Center's pad 39A, ferrying a crew of seven astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). The cargo included the first section of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo laboratory and the Canadian Space Agency's two-armed robotic system. Astronauts will conduct a series of space walks to install the new equipment during the 16-day mission, the longest shuttle mission to the ISS.
A thing of true beauty.
spaceflightnow.com
After extensive troubleshooting, Canadian robotics experts now believe a suspect data cable - not a software timing issue - is preventing computer commands from powering up a $209 million maintenance robot under construction aboard the international space station. Covering the bases, they uplinked a software patch early today to adjust the timing of the computer commands as originally planned, but, as most expected, the patch didn’t work.
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