Sign in

back to article Shuttle Endeavour 'go' for Sunday blastoff

NASA's space shuttle Endeavour is ready for a pre-dawn launch this Sunday, carrying a new room and seven-window observation dome to the International Space Station. Officials at Kennedy Space Center said liftoff is go for 4:39 AM EST (9:39 AM GMT, 1:39 AM PST), with an 80 per cent chance of good weather. "The team is …

COMMENTS

House rules Send corrections
This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Gene Cash Silver badge

    And a Brit!

    You do know Patrick is from Yorkshire? He became a US citizen because there's no future for that crazy astronaut stuff in England. In zero-g, it's lot harder to queue up for the dole...

    1 0
  2. Andus McCoatover

    Cupola

    What I never realised before is that the crew of the ISS (until Cupla is installed) can't see Earth visually, except maybe, through a docked Shuttle's windows, or by electronic means (cameras) - unless they nip outside for a quick cigarette ^W^Wspacewalk. Corrections gladly received if I'm wrong.

    Makes Bowie's "Major Tom" a bit more poignant.

    "Am I sitting in a tin can Far above the world Planet Earth is blue...."

    Even maximum security prisoners can see "...that little tent of blue that prisoners call the sky", as Oscar Wilde called it in the 'Ballard of Reading Jail*'

    They're braver than I could ever be.

    * Never realised it (the ballard) was so long, and so well written. That's the only line I knew. Digression, but worth a read. http://emotionalliteracyeducation.com/classic_books_online/rgaol10.htm

    0 0
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    There had damn well better be

    some decent Twitpics from the cupola

    0 0
  4. Annihilator Silver badge
    Unhappy

    No-Go

    Got scrubbed at 0430 EDT due to cloud cover :-( Next opportunity is 0414 EDT tomorrow.

    Decided to get up earlier than my normal Sunday rise to watch the last night-launch live on Nasa. Gutted!

    0 0
This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like

  • Musk repeats threat to end $46.5bn Twitter deal – with lawyers, not just tweets
    Right as Texas AG sticks his oar in
    Katyanna Quach Mon 6 Jun 2022 // 21:09 UTC

    Elon Musk is prepared to terminate his takeover of Twitter, reiterating his claim that the social media biz is covering up the number of spam and fake bot accounts on the site, lawyers representing the Tesla CEO said on Monday.

    Musk offered to acquire Twitter for $54.20 per share in an all-cash deal worth over $44 billion in April. Twitter's board members resisted his attempt to take the company private but eventually accepted the deal. Musk then sold $8.4 billion worth of his Tesla shares, secured another $7.14 billion from investors to try and collect the $21 billion he promised to front himself. Tesla's stock price has been falling since this saga began while Twitter shares gained and then tailed downward.

    Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Barclays, and others promised to loan the remaining $25.5 billion from via debt financing. The takeover appeared imminent as rumors swirled over how Musk wanted to make Twitter profitable and take it public again in a future IPO. But the tech billionaire got cold feet and started backing away from the deal last month, claiming it couldn't go forward unless Twitter proved fake accounts make up less than five per cent of all users – a stat Twitter claimed and Musk believes is higher.

    Continue reading
  • NASA to commission independent UFO study
    The truth is out there, and the space agency intends to find it – scientifically
    Richard Currie Fri 10 Jun 2022 // 13:30 UTC

    Over recent years, Uncle Sam has loosened its tight-lipped if not dismissive stance on UFOs, or "unidentified aerial phenomena", lest anyone think we're talking about aliens. Now, NASA is the latest body to get in on the act.

    In a statement released June 9, the space agency announced it would be commissioning a study team, starting work in the fall, to examine unidentified aerial phenomena or UAPs, which it defined as "observations of events in the sky that cannot be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena."

    NASA emphasized that the study would be from a "scientific perspective" – because "that's what we do" – and focus on "identifying available data, how best to collect future data, and how NASA can use that data to move the scientific understanding of UAPs forward."

    Continue reading
  • Twitter shareholders to vote on Elon Musk's acquisition
    Mogul's team sprayed with 'firehose' of data as unending saga continues
    Richard Currie Thu 9 Jun 2022 // 14:00 UTC

    Twitter has reportedly thrown its $44 billion buyout by Elon Musk to a shareholder vote, which could take place around late July or early August.

    Execs told employees of the plans on Wednesday, according to outlets including CNBC and the Financial Times.

    The move follows reiterations by Musk's camp that he is prepared to walk away from the deal if the social media network fails to provide accurate information on the number of fake accounts.

    Continue reading
  • Meteoroid hits main mirror on James Webb Space Telescope
    Impact at the end of May bad enough to garble data, but NASA isn't worried
    Brandon Vigliarolo Thu 9 Jun 2022 // 15:00 UTC

    The James Webb Space Telescope has barely had a chance to get to work, and it's already taken a micrometeoroid to its sensitive primary mirror.

    The NASA-built space observatory reached its final destination, the L2 orbit, a million miles away from Earth, at the end of January.

    In a statement, NASA said the impact happened some time at the end of May. Despite the impact being larger than any that NASA modeled and "beyond what the team could have tested on the ground," the space agency said the telescope continues to perform at higher-than-expected levels. The telescope has been hit on four previous occasions since launch.

    Continue reading
  • Astra fails, sends NASA's Tropics weather satellites back to Earth
    Orbital success counter stuck at 2 as upper stage of rocket shuts down early and CubeSats lost
    Richard Speed Mon 13 Jun 2022 // 11:33 UTC

    The first of NASA's TROPICS constellation launches came to an unscheduled end over the weekend as the Astra launch vehicle it was riding failed to deliver the cubesats to orbit.

    It was all going so well. The two cubesats lifted off atop an Astra Rocket 3 from Space Launch Complex 46 at approximately 1343 EDT on June 12, 2022.

    The initial flight seemed go swimmingly, but things went wrong after the first stage had completed. Viewers of video streaming live from the rocket saw what appeared to be the start of some tumbling before the feed was abruptly cut off. NASA's California-based commercial rocket-making partner Astra confirmed that the upper stage had shut down early, dooming the payload to a considerably earlier than planned rendezvous with Earth.

    Continue reading
  • SEC probes Musk for not properly disclosing Twitter stake
    Meanwhile, social network's board rejects resignation of one its directors
    Katyanna Quach Fri 27 May 2022 // 21:26 UTC

    America's financial watchdog is investigating whether Elon Musk adequately disclosed his purchase of Twitter shares last month, just as his bid to take over the social media company hangs in the balance. 

    A letter [PDF] from the SEC addressed to the tech billionaire said he "[did] not appear" to have filed the proper form detailing his 9.2 percent stake in Twitter "required 10 days from the date of acquisition," and asked him to provide more information. Musk's shares made him one of Twitter's largest shareholders. The letter is dated April 4, and was shared this week by the regulator.

    Musk quickly moved to try and buy the whole company outright in a deal initially worth over $44 billion. Musk sold a chunk of his shares in Tesla worth $8.4 billion and bagged another $7.14 billion from investors to help finance the $21 billion he promised to put forward for the deal. The remaining $25.5 billion bill was secured via debt financing by Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Barclays, and others. But the takeover is not going smoothly.

    Continue reading
  • GPUs aren’t always your best bet, Twitter ML tests suggest
    Graphcore processor outperforms Nvidia rival in team's experiments
    Tobias Mann Thu 16 Jun 2022 // 00:25 UTC

    GPUs are a powerful tool for machine-learning workloads, though they’re not necessarily the right tool for every AI job, according to Michael Bronstein, Twitter’s head of graph learning research.

    His team recently showed Graphcore’s AI hardware offered an “order of magnitude speedup when comparing a single IPU processor to an Nvidia A100 GPU,” in temporal graph network (TGN) models.

    “The choice of hardware for implementing Graph ML models is a crucial, yet often overlooked problem,” reads a joint article penned by Bronstein with Emanuele Rossi, an ML researcher at Twitter, and Daniel Justus, a researcher at Graphcore.

    Continue reading
  • Mars helicopter needs patch to fly again after sensor failure
    NASA engineers continue to show Ingenuity as uplinking process begins
    Richard Speed Tue 7 Jun 2022 // 11:15 UTC

    The Mars Ingenuity helicopter is in need of a patch to work around a failed sensor before another flight can be attempted.

    The helicopter's inclinometer failed during a recommissioning effort ahead of the 29th flight. The sensor is critical as it will reposition the craft nearer to the Perseverance rover for communication purposes.

    Although not required during flight, the inclinometer (which consists of two accelerometers) is used to measure gravity prior to spin-up and takeoff. "The direction of the sensed gravity is used to determine how Ingenuity is oriented relative to the downward direction," said Håvard Grip, Ingenuity Mars Helicopter chief pilot.

    Continue reading
  • Twitter founder Dorsey beats hasty retweet from the board
    As shareholders sue the social network amid Elon Musk's takeover scramble
    Brandon Vigliarolo Thu 26 May 2022 // 20:18 UTC

    Twitter has officially entered the post-Dorsey age: its founder and two-time CEO's board term expired Wednesday, marking the first time the social media company hasn't had him around in some capacity.

    Jack Dorsey announced his resignation as Twitter chief exec in November 2021, and passed the baton to Parag Agrawal while remaining on the board. Now that board term has ended, and Dorsey has stepped down as expected. Agrawal has taken Dorsey's board seat; Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor has assumed the role of Twitter's board chair. 

    In his resignation announcement, Dorsey – who co-founded and is CEO of Block (formerly Square) – said having founders leading the companies they created can be severely limiting for an organization and can serve as a single point of failure. "I believe it's critical a company can stand on its own, free of its founder's influence or direction," Dorsey said. He didn't respond to a request for further comment today. 

    Continue reading
  • Elon Musk needs more cash for Twitter buy after Tesla margin loan lapses
    Entrepreneur now looking at $33.5b bill if he wants to complete $44b purchase
    Richard Currie Thu 26 May 2022 // 12:15 UTC

    Elon Musk must personally secure $33.5 billion to fund his $44 billion Twitter purchase after allowing a $12.5 billion margin loan against Tesla stock to expire.

    Regulatory filings released Wednesday show the Tesla and SpaceX boss agreeing to secure "an additional $6.25 billion in equity financing" on top of the original $27.3 billion.

    The Tesla boss's Twitter purchase originally relied on $21bn of equity that he had to provide along with $12.5bn in margin loans secured by his Tesla stock. That margin loan was dropped to $6.25bn on May 5, and this additional financing would eliminate it altogether.

    Continue reading

Biting the hand that feeds IT © 1998–2022

Do not sell my personal information Cookies Privacy Ts&Cs