Shuttle Debris Possibly Sighted

oh my

I don’t know what these might have been, could be ice, could be just tricks of light. I do know that one of the images I captured this morning of the main tank separation had a bright white piece of something zipping away from both the tank and the orbiter. You can see it in the photo that there is a tiny white speck above the tank strut on the right hand side of the image. (Click on the photo for a larger image) I doubt that it is anything to be worried about but the boys at NASA are going to conduct some imaging runs on the tiles in the next day or so

Video showed what appeared to be a large piece of debris flying off the external fuel tank two minutes into the flight. The object did not seem to hit the orbiter. Footage also showed what might have been at least two light-colored objects flying off Discovery as the shuttle cleared the launch pad.

SST-114

Shuttle Discovery Blasts Into Orbit

debris, space shuttle, STS-114

Shuttle Launch A-OK

SST-114 Discovery

The space shuttle Discovery made a sucessful launch this morning at 10:39 EST. The rocket cam photos of the main tank seperation that was televised was simply impressive! Next stop, the International Space Station!

Main Tank Sep

Watch NASA TV live
NASA Return to Flight main page
CNN coverage of the STS-114 launch
SPACE.com coverage of the Return to Space
RocketCam Videos from Past Missions

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Scientists Seek Sprite Light Source

Sprites

Everyso often nature throws the scientists a new bone to chew on. One of the latest are the odd flashes of light that have been theorized by scientists and verified by the space shuttle.

Giant red blobs, picket fences, upward branching carrots, and tentacled octopi – these are just a few of the phrases used to describe sprites – spectacular, eerie flashes of colored light high above the tops of powerful thunderstorms that can travel up to 50 miles high in the atmosphere

Scientists Seek Sprite Light Source

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Shuttle Flight Scrubbed

STS-114

Todays flight of STS-114 has be postponed due to one of the four low level fuel cut-off sensors in the main tank giving a faulty reading. These sensors monitor the level of hydrogen in the tanks so the motors will not run dry and be damaged if the burn is longer than expected. The crew is being unloaded and taken via the crew van to astronauts crew quarters and the ground crews are beginning the de-tanking process of the onboard cryogenics. The flight ops team will be assessing the problem and resetting the schedule accordingly. They will be having a press conference at apx. 4pm EST to discuss the events of the day. The chance for a flight tomorrow is very low as weather is going to be a major issue, todays launch had a 60% chance of being scrubbed due to low visibility due to clouds. Maximum visibility is needed to ensure that all 107 ground and air born cameras can get a good view of the vehicle during the assent to verify that the tiles have not sustained any damage during launch. The launch window for docking with the ISS to preform the scheduled re-supply mission is approximately two weeks.

UPDATE: The launch has been pushed back until Saturday, July 16 at 2:40 p.m. EDT

Watch NASA TV live
NASA Return to Flight main page
CNN coverage of the STS-114 launch
SPACE.com coverage of the Return to Space

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Direct Hit!

Temple 1

Last night the space probe ‘Deep Impact’ did just that to comet Temple 1. Some fo my friends and I were out looking for it, I didn’t see anything but Kevin and Donovan said they might have seen somthing flash. I had a camera with me but didn’t know exactly where to aim it. I have to admit that I was too busy playing ‘Ticket to Ride‘ to look up the info correctly. Anyway, the probe impacted as planned and hopefuly it will produce some good science as to what a comet is made up of. The photos from the impactor just before touching down at 6 miles a second are pretty cool. Go have a look now.

NASA – Deep Impact

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