An International Space Station Expedition 18 ARISS school contact has been planned with participants at Stephen F. Austin Elementary School, Richmond, Texas USA on 09 December. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 1545 UTC.

The contact will be a direct between stations NA1SS and NT5SM. The contact should be audible over central and eastern North America. Interested parties are invited to listen in on the 145.80 MHz downlink. The participants are expected to conduct the conversation in English.

The students at Stephen F. Austin Elementary School in Richmond, Texas have studied space and the identifying characteristics of objects in our solar system, including the soon, planets and moon.

An International Space Station Expedition 18 ARISS school contact has been planned with participants at Ellis School, Belleville, IL, USA on 08 December. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 1656 UTC.

The contact will be a direct between stations NA1SS and K9GXU. The contact should be audible over central and eastern North America. Interested parties are invited to listen in on the 145.80 MHz downlink. The participants are expected to conduct the conversation in English.

Grades 5-8. Ellis School is located 15 minutes from St. Louis and serves approximately 400 students ranging from kindergarten through fourth grade. Ellis school has been named a No Child Left Behind-Blue Ribbon winner for 2008. Only 21 schools in Illinois received this honor and Ellis School was the only school in Southern Illinois to be named a Blue Ribbon School. Nationwide, 329 schools were selected as Blue Ribbons Schools. The students that will be talking to Sandy on board the International Space Station will be 16-third graders that have been studying about the shuttle, ISS and the planets during this year at school. The questions that they will be asking Sandy are questions that the students have developed over the past few weeks. Dr. Gina Segobiano is the Superintendent of District 175; Pam Leonard is the Principal of Ellis School and Jennifer May is the Third Grade Teacher.

NASA has assigned the crews for space shuttle missions STS-130 and STS-131. The STS-130 mission will deliver a third connecting module to the International Space Station and a seven-windowed cupola to be used as a control room for robotics. The STS-131 mission will deliver research and science experiment equipment, a new sleeping area and supplies to the station in a logistics module carried in the shuttle's payload bay.

Marine Col. George Zamka will command the shuttle Endeavour during STS-130, targeted for launch in December 2009. Air Force Col. Terry Virts, Jr., will serve as the pilot. Mission specialists are NASA astronauts Air Force Lt. Col. Robert Behnken, Nicholas Patrick, Kathryn Hire and Stephen Robinson. Virts will be making his first trip to space.

NASA announced Thursday that space shuttle Atlantis' STS-125 mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope is targeted to launch May 12, 2009.

The final servicing mission to Hubble was delayed in September when a data handling unit on the telescope failed. Since then, engineers have been working to prepare a spare for flight. They expect to be able to ship the spare, known as the Science Instrument Command and Data Handling System, to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in spring 2009.

STS-125 is an 11-day flight featuring five spacewalks to extend Hubble's life into the next decade by refurbishing and upgrading the telescope with state-of-the-art science instruments and swapping failed hardware. Scott Altman will command STS-125, with Gregory C. Johnson serving as pilot. Mission specialists are veteran spacewalkers John Grunsfeld and Mike Massimino, and first-time space fliers Andrew Feustel, Michael Good and Megan McArthur

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory will launch two years later than previously planned, in the fall of 2011. The mission will send a next-generation rover with unprecedented research tools to study the early environmental history of Mars.

A launch date of October 2009 no longer is feasible because of testing and hardware challenges that must be addressed to ensure mission success. The window for a 2009 launch ends in late October. The relative positions of Earth and Mars are favorable for flights to Mars only a few weeks every two years. The next launch opportunity after 2009 is in 2011.

"We will not lessen our standards for testing the mission's complex flight systems, so we are choosing the more responsible option of changing the launch date," said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Up to this point, efforts have focused on launching next year, both to begin the exciting science and because the delay will increase taxpayers' investment in the mission. However, we've reached the point where we can not condense the schedule further without compromising vital testing."

NASA astronaut Carl Walz is leaving the agency to take a job in the private sector.

Walz most recently served as director for the Advanced Capabilities Division in the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. In the division, he played a key role in developing technologies that will lead to greater capabilities in robotic and human exploration of the solar system. He oversaw work in many fields, including nuclear power and propulsion, human adaptation to spaceflight, and lunar exploration. Many of these programs will help humans return to the moon and develop a sustained presence there.

NASA has signed a $141 million modification to the current International Space Station contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency for crew transportation services planned through the spring of 2012.

The firm-fixed price extension covers comprehensive Soyuz support, including all necessary training and preparation for launch, crew rescue, and landing of a long-duration mission for three station crew members. The crew members will launch on two Soyuz vehicles in the fall of 2011. They will land in the spring of 2012. The flights may be used to meet NASA's obligations to its international partners for transportation to and from the station.

The Space Shuttle Endeavour will be flown from California to Florida on a modified Boeing 747 as early as Sunday, NASA announced today.

The shuttle landed at Edwards Air Force Base Nov. 30 after bad weather in Florida forced a diversion to the California back-up location. Now NASA must ferry Endeavour back to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

For the flight, the shuttle will be mounted on the back of the 747.

The flight will cost about $1.8 million. The effort is not expected to have an impact on NASA's scheduled shuttle flights during 2009, including a planned May mission to work on the Hubble Space Telescope.

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's NASA transition team is asking U.S. space agency officials to quantify how much money could be saved by canceling the Ares 1 rocket and scaling back the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle next year.

Obama pledged during his campaign to inject an additional $2 billion into NASA aimed in part at narrowing the gap between the space shuttle's retirement and the introduction of a successor system. While NASA Administrator Mike Griffin and his senior managers are adamant that Ares and Orion are the right vehicles to fill that role, Obama did not endorse either system by name during his campaign.

Space shuttle Endeavour returned to Earth on Sunday, completing a 16-day "extreme home improvement" mission to upgrade and service the International Space Station (ISS).

The orbiter touched down at 4:25 p.m. EST (2125 GMT) at Edwards Air Force Base in California, after being diverted from NASA's Kennedy Space Center due to concerns over strong crosswinds and thunderstorms in the vicinity of the Florida landing facility.

"Wheels stop, Endeavour!" announced spacecraft communicator Alan Poindexter as the shuttle came to a halt on the runway. "Welcome back, that was a great way to finish a fantastic flight, Fergie."