Endeavour departs the space station and targets a Wednesday landing

       NEWSALERT: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 @ 2015 GMT
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SHUTTLE ENDEAVOUR UNDOCKS FROM THE SPACE STATION
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Endeavour departed the international space station Monday evening to close
out a marathon five-spacewalk assembly mission. The astronauts are packing
up the cabin and testing the ship's reentry system for Wednesday's planned
return to Earth.

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts123/status.html


STATION CHIEF GIVES DETAILED UPDATE ON JOINT PROBLEM
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Analysis of metallic contamination from a critical solar array rotary
joint on the international space station indicates a "high-friction event"
of some sort, possibly a misaligned bearing roller or some other like
defect, has chewed up and damaged one of the surfaces of a 10-foot-wide
gear and bearing race, the station's program manager said Monday.

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts123/080325sarj/


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ODYSSEY GIVES CLUES TO GUIDE SEARCH FOR LIFE ON MARS
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NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter has found evidence of salt deposits. These
deposits point to places where water once was abundant and where evidence
might exist of possible Martian life from the Red Planet's past.

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0803/24marssalt/


SUPER-BRIGHT GAMMA RAY BURST VISIBLE TO NAKED EYE
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An intense stellar explosion - a gamma ray burst - detected by NASA's
Swift space telescope, is the most distant object visible to the naked eye
and the brightest object ever observed by humans.

http://www.astronomynow.com/Super-brightgammarayburst.html


CASSINI FINDS OCEAN MAY EXIST BENEATH TITAN'S CRUST
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NASA's Cassini spacecraft has discovered evidence that points to the
existence of an underground ocean of water and ammonia on Saturn's moon
Titan. The findings, made using radar measurements of Titan's rotation,
appear in the journal Science.

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0803/24titan/


SPACEWALKERS ANCHOR INSPECTION BOOM TO STATION
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Astronauts Bob Behnken and Mike Foreman went outside for a six-hour
spacewalk Saturday, installing Endeavour's 50-foot-long heat shield
inspection boom on the space station for use by the next shuttle mission,
deploying an experiment package they were unable to attach earlier and
inspecting the station's damaged solar array rotary joint.

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts123/080322fd13/


HUBBLE SERVICING MISSION'S LAUNCH DATE THREATENED
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With the shuttle Endeavour's mission entering the home stretch, shuttle
Discovery remains on track for blastoff May 25 to ferry a huge Japanese
laboratory module to the space station. But subsequent near-term flights,
including a high-profile mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope,
could be delayed, sources say, because of ongoing external tank production
issues.

http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts123/080321tanks/