STS-119’s opening launch attempt has been scrubbed until Sunday, March 15,, following a LH2 leak during tanking. The leak related to a carrier plate that is attached to the intertank area of the ET, with attempts to cycle the associated valve to reduce the leak to acceptable proving to be unsuccessful.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has launched their Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft on their debut mission to the moon. A Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-XL-C11) lifted-off from Sriharikota, India early on Wednesday, local time.
The PSLV-C11 is an uprated version of ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle standard configuration. Weighing 316 tonnes at lift-off, the vehicle uses larger [...]

The key results of a major assessment into extending the shuttle manifest through to as far as 2015 have been sent to NASA HQ on Tuesday, in the form of a draft White Paper.
The document - which is expected to back up claims that two orbiters, flying through to as far as 2015, is a [...]

Captain Eugene (Gene) Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, has called for the shuttle to be extended past 2010 - so long as it doesn’t damage Constellation’s manifest - in order to reduce the gap in US manned space flight capability.
In an inspiring interview, Captain Cernan spoke on a variety [...]

While public attention remains focused on the unraveling drama of the emergency spacecraft landing on April 19, and how close to death the crew actually came, space engineers in Russia and the United States are already looking ahead.
Their concern now must be what to do regarding space hardware and procedures already built, or [...]

22 years ago, shuttle Challenger was lost 73 seconds into first stage flight, when a failure of the O-ring seal on the right Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) led to the destruction of the orbiter, killing the crew of seven.
Whilst still grieving their loss, the families of the STS-51L mission decided to set up [...]

On June 1, NASA submitted a report to the Congress entitled “NASA Report to Congress Regarding a Plan for the International Space Station National Laboratory.” With a title like that, who could not get excited?
Sarcasm aside, a careful reading of the report - and its much more extensive attached documents - coupled with [...]

A Chinese Long March 3-A launch vehicle has launched a communications satellite from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest Sichuan Province today at 16:28pm UK time.
The “Beidou” (Compass) satellite is part of a planned GPS constellation of 35 satellites, including five geo-stationary (GEO) Earth orbit satellites and 30 medium Earth orbit satellites. [...]

United Launch Alliance (ULA) is continuing to study and promote the use of the Atlas V for commercial passenger transportation, including space tourism and transportation to the proposed Bigelow Aerospace orbital station.
A partnership between Lockheed (now ULA) and Bigelow was announced in September to study in detail the feasibility of use of the [...]

The launch of Bigelow Aerospace’s Genesis II has suffered a delay of at least 60 days, according to a statement released by its founder, Robert Bigelow.
The hit to the schedule of the second revolutionary spacecraft, which is an upgraded version of Genesis I - which was successfully launched via a Russian RS-20 Voyevoda [...]

NASA is still trying to officially bring Pad 39A into operation for STS-117 and may switch back to 39B - the pad that will soon begin morphing into the Ares I launch pad - for the March launch of Shuttle Atlantis.
Pad 39A was last used for the ill-fated launch of Shuttle Columbia in [...]

The stunning video and photography gained by the high altitude flying WB-57s during shuttle launches may soon be a thing of the past, as NASA evaluated whether to cancel the use of the two aircraft.
Known as WAVE (WB-57 Ascent Video Experiment), the ability to have the additional resource of unique ascent - and [...]

NASA managers have re-scheduled a YERO (Year End Rollover) test involving the Mission Control Center (MCC), after it was originally set to take place on New Year’s Eve.
Capability to handle a YERO event is now a Space Shuttle Program (SSP) requirement, although major headway has been made on understanding the both the technicalities [...]

A personal impression - by James Oberg.
As NASA officials, veteran flight directors, and the news media jostled each other to observe the inauguration ceremony of a new control room at NASA’s “Mission Control” in Houston, I noticed one small subset of the room’s inhabitants who appeared to be paying absolutely no attention to [...]

Tethers could be used to stabilize, reboost, or even change the orbit of the International Space Station (ISS), according to a recent NASA study. That’s the promise of an electrodynamic tether - a simple wire that turns the entire planet Earth into a giant motor, according a presentation obtained by NASASpaceflight.com.
The document details [...]

NASASpaceflight is proud to announce the launch of a new service for those wishing to be fully informed of the very latest developments in the world of space flight.
Spaceflight L2 is an optimised, in-depth resource keeping you in touch with the inner workings of Space Shuttle processing, CEV development, ESAS development and international [...]

Statistics complied by AIA’s Aerospace Research Center have pointed to record figures being reported in the aerospace industry last year - aided by a strong final quarter.
The industry added 7,300 jobs in the final quarter alone, with $241 billion in orders, $175 billion in shipments, with a backlog now swelled to $281 billion [...]

Noted physicist Dr. Franklin Felber will present his new exact solution of Einstein’s 90-year-old gravitational field equation to the Space Technology and Applications International Forum (STAIF) in Albuquerque on Febuary 14.
The solution is the first that accounts for masses moving near the speed of light.

Three years ago today saw the loss of the Space Shuttle orbiter Columbia and her crew during re-entry at the end of mission STS-107.
While the names of the seven brave astronauts that perished during re-entry will be honoured today, Columbia’s loss - despite being a ‘machine’ - continues to be grieved alongside her [...]