This Week At NASA -- 02-01-08

This Week At NASA

SHUTTLE UPDATE - KSC/MSFC
Space Shuttle Atlantis is scheduled for a February 7 launch the International Space Station. The STS-122 Crew lead by Commander Steve Frick are slated to lift off from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39A at 2:45 p.m. Eastern. Testing at the Marshall Space Flight Center indicates that the fuel sensor problems, which caused STS-122 to be delayed, have been fixed. A redesigned connector on the engine cutoff sensors has passed tough cryogenic and vibration tests, verifying its readiness for flight.

ISS SPACEWALK - JSC
astronaut Andy Thomas met with members of Virginia's General Assembly to highlight the contributions that Langley and the Wallops Flight Facility have made to the state's aerospace industry. Thomas also spoke with students about his career in space exploration. Together, Langley and Wallops provide 10-thousand high-paying jobs and generate more than a billion dollars for Virginia's economy. Further south, representatives from the Stennis Space Center visited the state capital in Jackson to meet with legislators as part of NASA Space Day in Mississippi. Stennis and its nearly 5-thousand employees had an estimated impact of $839 million on Mississippi's economy in 2007, a 27 percent increase from the previous year.

Veteran astronaut Mike Foale thanked Mississippi legislators for their continued support of NASA.

ARES LIVE! - MSFC
Steve Cook, the Ares Project Manager at the Marshall Space Flight Center, took part in a live, televised discussion with Huntsville area middle school students. WHNT-TV, Huntsville's CBS affiliate, and E-TV, the city's educational channel, broadcast the one-hour event. Select students interacted with Cook through a Digital Learning Network; others emailed Cook questions about Ares, NASA's launch vehicles that will take humans back to the moon and later to Mars and other destinations.

EXPLORER 1 - JPL
A half-century ago, Explorer 1 became America's first Earth-orbiting satellite. In Huntsville, the birthplace of the U.S. space program, remembering Explorer was part of a gala celebration for the grand opening of the Davidson Center for Space Exploration. The gala also kicked off a yearlong commemoration of NASA's 50th anniversary by Discovery Communications with special events, projects and programming in partnership with the agency. Dr. Wernher von Braun and his team designed, tested and built Explorer's rocket at the Marshall Space Flight Center, in Huntsville. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which built the Explorer 1 spacecraft, celebrated with numerous events. JPL also produced a documentary about Explorer to air on Los Angeles public TV, and nationally on Discovery HD Theatre and NASA Television. The launch of Explorer 1 50 years ago propelled America into the space age.

And that's This Week At NASA!

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• NASA
• aviation
• space
• Shuttle
• future
• ISS