Science News

China’s space program will launch an unmanned experimental module next year, the first component of its permanent space station, state media reported Wednesday.

Xinhua quoted Liang Xiaohong, head of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, as saying Tiangong 1 would be slung into space atop a modified version of the two-stage Long March 2F rocket capable of carrying payloads of more than eight tons.

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China has postponed the next step in its ambitious space station programme until 2011 for technical reasons, state media said Wednesday.

But the initial launch has now been delayed by a year due to “technical reasons”, Qi said, without elaborating.

China had originally planned to place the Tiangong-1 space module in orbit late this year and undertake experimental docking manoeuvres in subsequent missions, Xinhua news agency cited rocket designer Qi Faren as saying.

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A spacesuit worn by cosmonaut Anatoli Artsebarsky, pieces of Soyuz shuttles that rocketed into space and a Mir Space Station control panel are among dozens of Soviet space program items for sale this month in Canada.

“You get a sense of the magnitude of the Soviet space program handling all of these items.

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With the successful landing of the space shuttle Endeavour Sunday night, the International Space Station is on the verge of completion after $100 billion and 11 years of construction. NASA plans just four more missions to wrap up its few remaining station deliveries.

“Well go into that with our heads held high,” shuttle launch director Mike Leinbach said after the landing.

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When NASAs space shuttle Endeavour landed safely on Earth Sunday night, reporters werent the only ones pointing cameras at the returning spaceship. An astronaut took his own snapshot of the shuttle landing from space.

The image shows Endeavour as it is performing a so-called S-turn, one of several turns used to slow a landing space shuttle from Mach 25, the rate they fly when they enter Earths atmosphere.

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This story was updated at 10:45 p.m. ET.

Commander George Zamka piloted Endeavour and his five crewmates to a landing at 10:20 p.m. EST (0320 Monday GMT) on NASAs Shuttle Landing Facility runway at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

HOUSTON - Space shuttle Endeavour touched down safely in Florida Sunday evening, beating a stormy weather forecast that had threatened to extend its two-week mission to deliver NASAs last major additions to the International Space Station .

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This story was updated at 9:17 p.m. EST.

Despite a gloomy weather forecast of rain and clouds, conditions cleared enough on the ground to allow Endeavour to fire its rocket engines to leave orbit for a planned landing at 10:20 p.m. EST (0320 Monday GMT) tonight at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

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Endeavour and its six astronauts dropped out of orbit and zoomed toward a rare nighttime landing Sunday to end a mission that resulted in the virtual completion of the International Space Station.

Mission Control waited until the last possible minute before giving commander George Zamka the go-ahead to head home.

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Its landing day for space shuttle Endeavour and its crew of six astronauts are hoping for a break in the Florida weather tonight so they can return to Earth after two weeks in space.

“Were looking forward to today,” shuttle commander George Zamka radioed Mission Control.

Endeavour is scheduled to land tonight at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

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A main computer failure aboard the International Space Station knocked out communications between the orbiting laboratory and Earth for a short time Sunday, but the station has since recovered, NASA officials said.

Since then, each of the three computers has suffered a so-called transition event, in which the primary computer shifts to a backup, but the space stations main control computers are currently all online, NASA officials said.

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