A view of the space shuttle Endeavour at the ISS as tweeted by astronaut Soichi Noguchi.
A quiet week ahead again in the realm of space exploration. With no launches planned and no launches last week to report on, lets delve into other space news.
Interesting Hubble Observations
In many ways, all of the Hubble observations are interesting, but here is a list of some of the standouts in the coming week. A more complete list can be found at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) This Week On HST Website.
NICMOS Imaging of Protostars in the Orion A Cloud: The Role of Environment in Star Formation
Snapshot Survey for Planetary Nebulae in Local Group Globular Clusters
This is a small list of the overall observations. You may also see some of these observations popping up in other weeks as many observation programs consist of several observations over time.
Manned Spaceflight
This past week, the Space Shuttle Endeavour successfully delivered the Tranquility node to the ISS along with one of the greatest views of the Earth available in the form of a 7 window observation platform. The crew of STS-130 landed last night at the Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility at 10:20 p.m. after some uncertainty due to poor weather at Kennedy as well as bad weather at Edwards Air Force Base, the backup landing facility. Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, who has been tweeting some great pictures from the ISS, watched Endeavour re-enter the atmosphere from the new cupola on Tranquility. What a view! With all of these new pictures from the ISS being tweeted down to Earth, don’t forget to check for the ISS passing over your home and watch it go by knowing someone is looking back down at you!
