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Archive for December, 2009

The Soyuz TMA-17 rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 4:52 p.m. EST on Sunday, Dec. 20, carrying Expedition 22 NASA Flight Engineer Timothy J. Creamer of the U.S., Soyuz Commander Oleg Kotov of Russia and Flight Engineer Soichi Noguchi of Japan to the International Space Station. Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

NASA astronaut T.J. Creamer, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi safely launched aboard a Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station on Sunday.

As elements of the integrated circuits running our computers, phones and electronics, silicon wafers are everywhere. An ESA-led effort is establishing an out-of-this-world use for these commonplace items: when stacked together precisely by the thousand they promise to deliver astronomy’s clearest X-ray view yet of the most violent regions of space.

Laurie Leshin has been named the new deputy associate administrator of the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, effective in January.

NASA and the U.S. Department of the Interior presented the William T. Pecora Award to the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System, or CERES, team and to Forrest Hall, senior research scientist at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

A NASA jumbo jet that will help scientists unlock the origins of the universe with infrared observations reached a milestone Friday when doors covering the plane?s telescope were fully opened in flight.

Yesterday, an Ariane 5 GS launcher lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on a journey to place the French military reconnaissance satellite Helios-2B into Sun-synchronous polar orbit. Flight V193 was the seventh Ariane 5 launch of 2009 and used the last of the GS variant of the launcher.

The Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft is rolled out by train to the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Friday, Dec. 18, 2009. The launch of the Soyuz spacecraft with Expedition 22 NASA Flight Engineer Timothy J. Creamer of the U.S., Soyuz Commander Oleg Kotov of Russia and Flight Engineer Soichi Noguchi of Japan, is scheduled for Monday, Dec., 21, 2009 at 3:52a.m. Kazakhstan time. Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

A NASA jumbo jet that will help scientists unlock the origins of the universe with infrared observations reached a milestone Friday when doors covering the plane?s telescope were fully opened in flight.

ESA PR 32 2009 – On Thursday 14 January 2010, ESA’s Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain will meet the press at the traditional start-of-year gathering at ESA’s headquarters in Paris. The meeting will begin at 08:30 with breakfast, followed at 09:00 by a press briefing to go over the Agency’s activities in the year just ended and take a look at activities to come in 2010.