Cape Canaveral

Nasa astronauts prepared on Tuesday to bring the space shuttle Endeavour back to Earth after a two-week mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Endeavour is scheduled to land at the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida, with two chances to touch down, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said.

The United States shuttle Endeavour prepared to dock with the International Space Station on Friday after sustaining minor damage to its external fuel tank during lift-off, Nasa said. Altogether, nine pieces of insulation flaked off during the initial minutes of ascent, but only three may have struck the shuttle itself.

United States space shuttle Endeavour was blasting through space on Thursday, taking the first teacher there 21 years after the Challenger explosion ended the dream of another pioneering teacher. Teacher-turned-astronaut Barbara Morgan (55) has become the star of the second shuttle mission to the International Space Station this year.

Nasa managers on Monday cleared space shuttle Endeavour and seven astronauts, including a former school teacher who trained with the ill-fated Challenger crew, for launch on Wednesday. The crew plans to spend seven to 10 days at the International Space Station, which is a little more than half finished.

An unmanned Delta rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station early on Saturday, sending a water-analysing science probe on its way to Mars. The Phoenix spacecraft, which lifted off at 9.26am GMT, is expected to reach the northern polar region of Mars on May 25.

The space shuttle Discovery and its seven astronauts safely returned to Earth on Friday after some last-minute suspense over which landing site to use, closing out a year in which Nasa finally got construction of the international space station back on track.

Space shuttle Discovery blasted off its seaside launch pad on Saturday, defying the odds of poor weather and ending the ban on night-time flights imposed after the 2003 Columbia disaster. High winds had threatened to delay the flight for the second time in as many days but the gusts calmed, clearing the way for Nasa’s third shuttle mission in six months.

Space shuttle Atlantis roared off its seaside Florida launch pad on Saturday after two weeks of delays, setting the stage for Nasa to resume assembly of the International Space Station. The shuttle’s fuel tank appeared to shed at least two pieces of insulating foam during the climb into orbit, one of which may have struck Atlantis, but mission control said it was unlikely to have caused any damage.

Nasa moved the Atlantis shuttle off its Florida launch pad on Tuesday to protect it from Tropical Storm Ernesto, a change that threatens plans to lift off this month. The storm began intensifying on Tuesday as it left Haiti, where it killed two people, and Cuba to head over open water toward south Florida.

Nasa officials decided a crack in Discovery‘s fuel tank insulating foam was not enough of a threat to stop the countdown on Tuesday to their first Independence Day holiday shuttle launch and ”a nice fireworks display” for the United States. Inspectors spotted the crack on Monday.

Over the past three months, workers at the Kennedy Space Centre have tripped, dropped things, banged into sensitive equipment and started fires in a baffling string of accidents that have left one person dead. ”There’s enough going on that we’re very, very concerned,” said Bill Parsons, deputy director of the Kennedy Space Centre.

Nasa scientists hope the third time is the charm for their -million unmanned mission to Pluto. The space agency planned to make a third attempt to launch the New Horizons probe on Thursday, a day after a storm knocked out power at the Maryland-based laboratory that will command the mission.

Nasa prepared to launch an unmanned, piano-sized probe that will fly by Pluto, the solar system’s last unexplored planet, and also study a mysterious zone of icy objects that surrounds the frosty planet at the outer edges of the planetary system. The launch has drawn protests from anti-nuclear activists because the spacecraft will be powered by 11kg of plutonium.

Discovery blasted off on Tuesday for the first United States space-shuttle mission since the Columbia disaster in February 2003, which forced the US to rethink its space programme completely. Thirteen days after a previous attempt was called off, Discovery lifted off into clear blue skies.

The space shuttle Discovery‘s launch could go ahead even if a fuel-gauge malfunction reoccurs, but weather might delay the lift-off, Nasa said on Sunday. Nasa has failed to explain what caused the failure of a sensors that prompted the last-minute cancellation of the July 13 launch.

Nasa called off Wednesday’s launch of Discovery — the first by a US space shuttle since the 2003 Columbia disaster — after detecting a faulty fuel sensor. The flight was postponed two hours and 20 minutes before the scheduled lift-off. The seven crew members had already boarded Discovery.

Just before it disintegrated, space shuttle Columbia experienced an abnormal rise in temperature and wind resistance that forced the craft’s automatic pilot to make rapid changes to its flight path — possible evidence that some heat-protection tiles were missing or damaged, Nasa said.