Atlas 5 rocket rolls out for Friday launch / Japanese rocket test-fired

     NEWSALERT: Thursday, April 2, 2009 @ 2059 GMT
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ATLAS 5 ROCKET BACK ON CAPE CANAVERAL LAUNCH PAD
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Two weeks after a leaky liquid oxygen valve postponed the Atlas 5 rocket's
flight carrying a U.S. military communications satellite, the booster has
rolled back to the launch pad for Friday evening's liftoff.

http://spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av016/status.html


ENGINEERING DOUBLE CHECKS PUT OFF NEXT ARIANE LAUNCH
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The launch of two European astronomical observatories will slip until May
because engineers need extra time to make sure the $1.3 billion Herschel
telescope can survive the extreme mechanical pressures of blastoff,
officials said Thursday.

http://spaceflightnow.com/ariane/v188/090402delay.html


NEW JAPANESE ROCKET FIRES ITS ENGINES ON LAUNCH PAD
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Japan's new H-2B rocket rolled to its oceanfront launch pad this week and
briefly fired its two main engines Thursday, concluding the heavy-lift
booster's first practice countdown after a six-day delay due to faulty
ground equipment.

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0904/02h2btest/


HUBBLE FINDS HIDDEN EXOPLANET IN ARCHIVAL DATA
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A powerful, newly refined image-processing technique may allow astronomers
to discover extrasolar planets that are possibly lurking in over a
decade's worth of Hubble Space Telescope archival data.

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0904/01hubbleplanet/