NASA has set new launch dates for the Shuttle and other missions:
Next Shuttle (STS 117): June 8
Dawn (mission to asteroids Ceres and Vesta, and nearly killed last year): June 30
Phoenix (Mars lander): August 3
Next two Shuttle launches (STS 118 and 120): August 8 and October 20
GLAST (the mission for which I am doing education work — for the next few weeks, at least): December 14
Not all of these are new, but they’re new to me at least, and maybe you too.
Tip of the nose cone to Damaris B. Sarria.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
That’s “minor planet” Ceres to you.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
…or maybe “dwarf planet.”
April 19th, 2007 at 10:51 am
Woohoo! GLAST! Less than a year now. Beats window shopping at Macy’s though.
April 20th, 2007 at 12:17 am
I presume that’s 2007 for all these?
Never mind “Minor planet /dwarf planet” though they’re all planets to me!
If they’re round like a planet, orbiting the sun independently like planets & not burning nuclear fuel like stars, well thats planetary enough as far as I’m concerned! If that means the solar system consists of 50 planets rather than 8 well so much the merrier then!
April 20th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Yay! DAWN finally making it. I wish Ceres was first. Interesting bit of trivia while Pluto was downgraded to dwarf planet status Ceres was upgraded to dwarf planet status and DAWN will actually get to Ceres before New Horizons gets to Pluto.
I hadn’t heard of Phoenix, I like the logo though. The poles are definently something we should check out especially with the loss of Mars Polar Lander (and two impactors) in 1999.
Glast is new to me, sounds interesting. Orbiting observatories have been such a boon to astronomy.
June 15th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
[…] has been moved back a bit, to January 31, 2008. Prior to this, the launch was scheduled for December 14. Delays like this are fairly typical given how hard it is to get spacecraft hardware put together. […]