Kepler poised for launch / NASA moves up Discovery's launch

      NEWSALERT: Thursday, March 5, 2009 @ 2058 GMT
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          The latest news from Spaceflight Now


+++
Train like an Astronaut, dine with Apollo 13 Astronauts Jim Lovell
and Fred Haise, obtain Astronaut autographs and mingle with over 25
hero Astronauts all at the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation's
Astronaut Autograph & Memorabilia Show November 7-8, 2009.
Visit: http://astronautscholarship.org/aams/ for details!  +++


KEPLER POISED FOR LAUNCH FRIDAY
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All systems are "go" for Friday night's blastoff of the Delta 2 rocket
from Cape Canaveral carrying Kepler, a planet-finding machine that look
for other Earth-size worlds around stars in the galaxy.

 http://spaceflightnow.com/delta/d339/status.html


SPACEFLIGHT NOW TO HOST LIVE LAUNCH BROADCAST
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Spaceflight Now is joining forces with veteran space broadcasters Miles
O'Brien and David Waters to provide unrivaled video coverage of space
shuttle Discovery's next mission, scheduled for launch on Wednesday, March
11.

 http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts119/090305broadcast/


NASA OFFICIALLY MOVES UP DISCOVERY'S LAUNCH DATE
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Shuttle managers met Wednesday to review tests and inspections of suspect
hydrogen flow control valves and agreed enough progress had been made to
justify another flight readiness review Friday and a March 11 target
launch date for the shuttle Discovery's delayed space station assembly
mission.

 http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts119/090304date/


GERIATRIC PULSAR STILL KICKING
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The oldest isolated pulsar ever detected in X-rays has been found with
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. This very old and exotic object turns
out to be surprisingly active.

 http://astronomynow.com/090303Geriatricpulsarstillkicking.html


MRO RESUMES NORMAL SCIENCE OPERATIONS AROUND MARS
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NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has fully recovered from an unexpected
computer re-set last week and resumed its scientific investigation of
Mars.

 http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0903/04mro/


ODYSSEY FLIGHT TEAM TO CHECK STATUS OF BACKUP SYSTEM
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The team operating NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter plans a procedure next week
to address a long-known, potential vulnerability of accumulated memory
corruption.

 http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0903/04odyssey/