Close Viewed from the Banana River Viewing Site at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, space shuttle Discovery arcs through a cloud-brushed sky, lighted by the trail of fire after launch on the STS-128 mission. Liftoff from Launch Pad 39A was on time at 11:59 p.m. EDT. The first launch attempt on Aug. 24 was postponed due to unfavorable weather conditions. The second attempt on Aug. 25 also was postponed due to an issue with a valve in space shuttle Discovery's main propulsion...

Close Lightning over the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39A competes with the xenon lights on the pad illuminating space shuttle Discovery waiting for a scheduled liftoff on the STS-128 mission. Launch was scrubbed due to the weather and another launch attempt is scheduled for Aug. 28. Discovery's 13-day mission will deliver more than 7 tons of supplies, science racks and equipment, as well as additional environmental hardware to sustain six crew members on the International...

Close Like early explorers mapping the continents of our globe, astronomers are busy charting the spiral structure of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Using infrared images from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists have discovered that the Milky Way's elegant spiral structure is dominated by just two arms wrapping off the ends of a central bar of stars. Previously, our galaxy was thought to possess four major arms.This artist's concept illustrates the new view of the Milky Way,...

The dust-filled disks where new planets may be forming around other stars occasionally take on some difficult-to-understand shapes. Now, a team led by John Debes at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., finds that a star's motion through interstellar gas can account for many of them."The disks contain small comet- or asteroid-like bodies that may grow to form planets," Debes said. "These small bodies often collide, which produces a lot of fine dust." As the star moves through the...

Scientists are busy preparing for the "First Light" flight of NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA, a highly modified Boeing 747SP with a 2.5-meter (8.2-foot) diameter infrared telescope installed in its rear fuselage. The first-light astronomical observation flights are now tentatively scheduled for Spring 2010 from NASA's Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif.A team of international partners is developing eight instruments that will enable SOFIA to...

At 11:49 p.m. EDT, Nicole Stott exchanged Soyuz seat liners with space station Flight Engineer Tim Kopra. Stott now is a member of the space station Expedition 20 crew, and Kopra is a member of Discovery’s crew. Kopra spent 44 days as a member of Expedition 20.Space Shuttle Mission: STS-128 Image above: The Expedition 20 crew welcomes the STS-128 crew aboard the station shortly after hatch opening. Discovery Docks, Joint Operations BeginSpace shuttle Discovery docked with the International Space...

NASA's Glenn Research Center has selected four Ohio companies to provide electrical, mechanical and structural construction-related activities. The work will support both institutional and research construction needs at Glenn's Lewis Field and the Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio.The selected companies are EdArch-Erie J.V. of Shaker Heights; R.J. Runge of Port Clinton; KBJ Inc. of Oakwood Village; and Pinnacle Construction and Development Group Inc. of Willoughby.The contracts begin in early October with a one-year base period followed by four...

NASA's Glenn Research Center has awarded a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract valued at $30 million to Mainthia Technologies, Inc. (MTI) of Cleveland.MTI will provide on-site services for the certification of pressure vessels and systems, and the operation, maintenance and engineering of cryogenic systems. MTI also will provide recertification, repairs and periodic in-service inspections and maintain the accuracy of the certification activities database.The systems and equipment to be certified and maintained under this contract are housed in various...

NASA has awarded Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems Inc. in Houston a one-year contract extension valued at $33 million to provide integration services for cargo delivery to and from the International Space Station.Lockheed Martin has held the station's cargo mission contract since January 2004. The one-year extension will bring the total value of the contract to $381 million.The contract provides cargo packing for delivery to and from the space station, consisting of pressurized and unpressurized science and logistics carriers, assembly hardware...

Estimates are that there are somewhere between six and ten million species of insects on the planet, yet few are as charismatic as the honey bee.Part of an order of winged insects called Hymenoptera, honey bees are best known for being prodigious producers of honey, the sweet amber substance they produce by partially digesting and repeatedly regurgitating the sugar-rich nectar found within the petals of flowering plants. They're also the workhorses of the modern industrial agricultural system, relied...

NASA is targeting space shuttle Discovery for a launch attempt Friday morning at 12:22 a.m., mission management team Chairman Mike Moses said. Engineers will evaluate a liquid hydrogen valve that developed problems during tanking operations Tuesday evening. Detailed test data about the valve will be examined before Discovery’s fuel tank is loaded with propellant ahead of Friday morning’s launch attempt.International Space Shuttle Mission: STS-128 Space shuttle Discovery stands on Launch Pad...

Lakes in Antarctica, concealed under miles of ice, require scientists to come up with creative ways to identify and analyze these hidden features. Now, researchers using space-based lasers on a NASA satellite have created the most comprehensive inventory of lakes that actively drain or fill under Antarctica's ice. They have revealed a continental plumbing system that is more dynamic than scientists thought."Even though Antarctica's ice sheet looks static, the more we watch it, the more we see there...

Forty years ago on July 20, 1969, the world watched as the crew of Apollo 11 took the first steps on the surface of the moon.To celebrate this historic occasion, NASA and Google announced the launch of the Moon in Google Earth, an interactive, 3D atlas of the moon, viewable with Google Earth 5.0.The announcement was made during a press conference at the Newseum in Washington, featuring remarks by Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin; Alan Eustace, a Google senior vice president; Andrew Chaikin, author and space historian; and Anousheh Ansari, the first...

NASA’s “Eyes on the Earth 3D” is back and better than ever before. This online experience now offers new features that allow users to view the latest data beamed back from NASA space satellites – in some cases, less than a few hours old. Developed using a state-of-the-art, browser-based visualization technology, "Eyes on the Earth 3D" displays the location of all of NASA's 15 currently operating Earth-observing missions in real time. These missions constantly monitor our planet's vital signs, such...

Impoverished fishermen along the coast of tropical African countries like Mozambique and Madagascar may have only a few more years to eke out a profit from one of their nations’ biggest agricultural exports. Within a few decades, they may no longer have a livelihood at all.That's because swampy mangrove forests – essential breeding grounds for fish and shellfish in these countries – are being destroyed by worsening pollution, encroaching real estate development, and deforestation necessary to sustain...

To see 100 of Chandra's "Greatest Hits" from the past 10 years, check out the slideshow below: NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is celebrating 10 years of exploring the invisible universe. On Aug. 19, 1999, Chandra captured its first image as an astronomical observatory. This first light image opened a new era for science as Chandra began its mission to open a mysterious universe.Chandra enables scientists from around the world to obtain unprecedented X-ray images of exotic environments to help...

For decades, astronomers have gone about their business of studying the cosmos with the assumption that stars of certain sizes form in certain quantities. Like grocery stores selling melons alone, and blueberries in bags of dozens or more, the universe was thought to create stars in specific bundles. In other words, the proportion of small to big stars was thought to be fixed. For every star 20 or more times as massive as the sun, for example, there should be 500 stars with the sun's mass or less.This...

Anyone who's vacationed in the mountains or lived on a farm knows that it's hard to get good internet access or a strong cell phone signal in a remote area. Communicating across great distances has always been a challenge. So when NASA engineers designed the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), they knew it would need an extraordinary communications system.Over the next year, the LRO, NASA's diligent robotic scout, will collect more information about the moon's surface and environment than any previous...

Humans might not be walking on Earth today if not for the ancient fusing of two microscopic, single-celled organisms called prokaryotes, NASA-funded research has found.By comparing proteins present in more than 3000 different prokaryotes - a type of single-celled organism without a nucleus -- molecular biologist James A. Lake from the University of California at Los Angeles' Center for Astrobiology showed that two major classes of relatively simple microbes fused together more than 2.5 billion...

Facing questions about her gender, South African teenager Caster Semenya easily won the 800-meter gold medal Wednesday at the world championships. Her dominating run came on the same day track and field’s ruling body said she was undergoing a gender test because of concerns she does not meet requirements to compete as...