shuttle

In an emotional memorial service, the widow of the shuttle Columbia's commander recalled their last meeting the day before launch and the devastation the families felt when they learned their loved ones had perished during re-entry 10 years ago Friday.

Speaking in front of the Space Mirror Memorial to fallen astronauts at the Kennedy Space Center's visitor complex, Evelyn Husband-Thompson shared memories of Columbia commander Rick Husband and his six crewmates, saying how proud the families were of the crew's accomplishments during their 16-day science mission.

The night before landing, the families "shared a meal together … Read more

As it looks to successfully complete the first of at least 12 regularly scheduled missions to the International Space Station, SpaceX's Dragon cargo capsule will leave the ISS tomorrow morning and head back to Earth, with NASA broadcasting the return live.

Commercially manufactured, Dragon became the first such craft to link up with the ISS, during a test mission in late May when flight engineer Donald Pettit used the ISS's robot arm to pluck the vessel out of "the sky." The craft successfully splashed down on May 31 and returned to the station on October 10 … Read more

Space shuttle Endeavour's final mission may not have been its most glamorous. Trucking through the streets of Los Angeles certainly counts among the shortest trips for a spacecraft that racked up more than 25 million miles since its first launch in 1986.

But "Mission 26" may be Endeavour's most watched journey. The throngs of people hoping to get one last glimpse of the spacecraft are one of the many elements that make this visually impressive time-lapse video so moving. … Read more

Leaping over the Golden Gate Bridge was no great shakes. And even zipping to the International Space Station and back was pretty much a piece of cake. But navigating the streets of Los Angeles is something else altogether, the Space Shuttle Endeavour is discovering.

The historic craft left Los Angeles International Airport on the back of a remote-controlled 160-wheel carrier before dawn Friday to begin a 12-mile mission along the L.A. streets to the California Science Center near downtown, where it will spend its retirement. It's due to reach the center late today, according to a report from … Read more

If you were just about anywhere in California last Friday, you probably had your head tilted up, scanning the skies for a very rare chance to see a Space Shuttle fly overhead.

This was the final flight of Endeavour, the last Space Shuttle built, as it made its way across and around the Golden State atop a specially outfitted Boeing 747 before landing in Los Angeles, where it will reside permanently at the California Science Center.

As it flew over landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge and NASA's Ames Research Center, thousands of people came out to celebrate the … Read more

SAUSALITO, Calif. -- With thousands of fans looking on from around the San Francisco Bay, the space shuttle Endeavour soared over the Golden Gate Bridge this morning en route to its final home in Los Angeles.

After taking off a little after 8 a.m. PT from the Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in southern California's Mojave Desert, and piggybacked on top of a specially-outfitted Boeing 747, Endeavour made its way north to Sacramento and then turned west toward San Francisco. The journey was a farewell tour for what was called the "Baby" space shuttle, a replacement for the ill-fated Challenger, which exploded after liftoff in 1986. Endeavour made 25 launches during its lifetime, the first in 1992, the last in May 2011. … Read more

Several months after its high-profile fly-by of the New York City skyline, the Space Shuttle Enterprise has landed on display at a New York exhibit presented by the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. The show finally opened to the public today.

The Enterprise has found its final home on the USS Intrepid. For now, it's housed in a temporary pavilion; the museum is planning a more permanent structure in the future.

The space shuttle was unveiled as part of Samsung's SpaceFest week at the museum, which also included the "launch" of the company's newest product, the 75-inch ES9000 television.… Read more

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif.--He might be the most famous airman in the history of the U.S. Air Force, and he's a graduate of the Test Pilot School.

In 1947, Capt. Chuck Yeager became the first person to break the sound barrier, hitting Mach 1.0 in a Bell X-1 rocket plane 42,000 feet above this Mojave Desert outpost. And today, to commemorate the import of the event that ushered in the supersonic era, the aircraft hangs from the ceiling in the entryway of the Smithsonian's Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Yeager … Read more

If you were an American astronaut heading into space anytime in the last 50 years or so, chances are your trip started in Florida.

More specifically, that flight -- into Earth's orbit or to the moon, in a shuttle or in a capsule -- would have started at the Kennedy Space Center on the Atlantic coastline. That now sprawling facility has been at the heart of NASA's operations since the fledgling space agency took over what had been a missile firing laboratory as the 1950s gave way to the 1960s.

The facility didn't carry John Kennedy's … Read more