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Wednesday’s CSExtra features the latest headline making space activities from around the world: NASA identifies and finds a repair for the external tank cracks that have stalled the shuttle program’s final missions. Discovery will aim for a Feb. 24 lift off. NASA holds off on Endeavour Commander Mark Kelly’s status. NASA offers Congress a plan for a heavy lift rocket that will cost more than the agency is scheduled to receive in appropriations. A European space missions finds a region rich star formation in the Milky Way galaxy.
1. From Spaceflightnow.com: Shuttle program managers identify the source of the fuel tank cracks that stalled the launchings of the final space shuttle missions as well as a remedy. Repairs are under way. Discovery’s mission, on hold since early November, could be ready by Feb. 24. Endeavour will be ready by April 28 and Atlantis, if Congress appropriates the funding, could be ready by June 28. However, NASA would prefer to launch Atlantis in late August.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110111rootcause/
2. From the Associated Press via the Washington Post and others: NASA outlines the cause for the fuel cracks that have grounded the shuttle, but a top official declines to discuss the status of Mark Kelly, the veteran astronaut assigned to command NASA’s final scheduled shuttle mission aboard shuttle Endeavour. Kelly is the husband of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who has among those wounded on Saturday in a hail of gun fire at a Tucson political rally.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/11/AR2011011104781.html
3. From the Houston Chronicle: Kelly will likely lead the Endeavour mission, George Abby, a space policy expert at Rice University in Houston, tells the Chronicle. Abbey explains why the veteran astronaut could be ready for the flight.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7376834.html
4. From Florida Today: As NASA prepares for two and possibly three more shuttle missions, the agency’s shuttle prime contractors prepares to notify workers of another lay off. Some 550 to 600 employees of United Space Alliance will be laid off in early April. Last Friday was the final day for a number of USA shuttle workers.
http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20110112/NEWS02/101120337/NASA+pencils+in+Feb.+24+flight
5. From Space News: NASA provides Congress with a required report on plans for a heavy lift rocket. It borrows from shuttle technology. However, NASA will not have the funding necessary to develop the launcher by the end of 2016 as directed under the 2010 NASA authorization act.
http://www.spacenews.com/civil/110111-nasa-heavy-lift-proposal.html
6. From Science News: Astronomers associated with the European Space Agency’s Planck mission identify a region of star birth in the Milky Way galaxy. The findings are presented at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/68639/title/Planck_telescope_finds_cold%2C_weird_wonders
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