NASA looked cautiously to its next mission due in October after the US shuttle Endeavour returned safely to Earth on Tuesday despite damage to its underside.
"We are still pointing for October, we still have time," the space agency's launch director Mike Leinbach told reporters at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida after the landing.
"We'll see the time it takes to make the modification," he said, referring to changes needed after a piece of foam broke off Endeavour's external fuel tank on blast-off and struck its belly, leaving a small gash in a heat tile.
NASA officials breathed a sigh of relief at Endeavour's safe landing. The heat tile had held when Endeavour re-entered Earth's atmosphere, undergoing temperatures up to 1,500?C as it jetted home.
"It looked almost like a pristine vehicle," Leinbach said.
"The tile did very well on re-entry," NASA administrator Michael Griffin said.
"Almost everything about this tank is working very well," he added, but warned: "We have to move carefully."
The 13-day mission that ended with Tuesday's faultless landing saw the first teacher in space, lending an element of human warmth after a troubling few months for NASA which has been hit by a series of scandals.
"You have given a new meaning to higher education," joked astronaut Chris Ferguson, as he welcomed back the five-man, two-woman crew including astronaut Barbara Morgan, the first teacher in space.
The Endeavour sailed back to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, amid blue skies, overflying Costa Rica and Cuba before touching down in Florida at 12:32pm, using a parachute to help it slow down.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS