Look Up: What's in the Sky This Week?
Photo of Shuttle Atlantis the night before launch in November 2009 by Heather Goss.
Update: Endeavour's launch was scrubbed this morning due to weather; it's been rescheduled for Monday morning at 4:14 a.m. This pushes SDO's launch back as well, now Wednesday at 10:26 a.m.
Space Shuttle Launch: Shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to lift-off tomorrow Monday from Kennedy Space Center. It's the fifth-to-last launch and, more importantly, the very last night launch of the shuttle. Night launches are a thing of beauty, and if we're very, very lucky, the weather gods might even let us get a glimpse from right here in the mid-Atlantic. Endeavour will leave from KSC on a Northeast trajectory, taking it right up the Eastern Seaboard. Seeing the shuttle from D.C. (with the light and buildings, not to mention the weather) might be a stretch, but if you're a little closer to the coast you may just see its rockets burning as it heads up to the International Space Station. Launch is scheduled for 4:39 4:14 a.m. (tip from an early morning launch viewer: keep your laptop on your bedstand and set an alarm for 4:20; go right back to sleep afterward). The STS-130 crew will be delivering a new section of the ISS, the Tranquility node, as well as a seven-windowed cupola; the crew will also perform three spacewalks. Watch the launch (as well as the spacewalks) at all the regular places -- NASA TV, Spaceflightnow.com, Spacevidcast.com.
Solar Dynamics Observatory The scientists and engineers up the street at NASA Goddard have been working hard on the Solar Dynamics Observatory, which is finally scheduled to lift off this Tuesday Wednesday. (It was originally supposed to launch last year). The SDO will be sent into geosynchronous orbit where it will collect data on the Sun -- the most thorough, high-resolution data we've ever collected. SDO will try to discover information about its 11-year solar cycle, its vast and complicated magnetic fields, how and why solar wind starts -- and furthermore, how we might create models to predict solar weather to better shield communications systems and other satellites in Earth's orbit. SDO is the first mission in NASA's Living With A Star program. The mission will launch from KSC at 10:30 10:26 a.m. -- watch it at the sites listed above. (I'll be watching at Goddard as part of the NASA SDO Tweetup. To participate in future tweetups -- which have been held at NASA HQ in D.C., Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Johnson Space Center in Houston, and Goddard -- follow NASATweetup on Twitter.)
Superbowl Space Fans: Sunday's the big day for football fans, and the Saints and the Colts will leave the fate of the first ball possession to a special coin. Minted in Florida last August, it was given to the crew of STS-129, who took it with them in orbit around Earth 171 times -- over four million miles -- last November. The coin was presented by the crew back to the NFL on January 27.