The nominees for the 2012 Endeavour Awards, to be presented at OryCon 34 for fiction written by Pacific Northwest authors, have been announced. The award includes a grant of $1,000. This year’s panel of judges includes Gregory Benford, Lawrence M. Schoen, and Susan Shwartz.
The nominees for the 2010 Endeavour Awards, to be presented at OryCon 33 for fiction written by Pacific Northwest authors, have been announced. The award includes a grant of $1,000. This year’s panel of judges includes John Joseph Adams, Bud Sparhawk, and Jo Walton.
The final launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour occurred at 8:56 ET on May 16. The mission, Endeavour‘s twenty-fifth, is being commanded by Mark Kelly and is expected to last 16 days, with a landing scheduled on May 24.
The final launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour has been postponed at least 72 hours due to concerns relating to the shuttle’s heating system. The external fuel tank will be drained of its oxygen and hydrogen propellants. This will the 25th and final mission of Endeavour.
NASA announced the four museums which will receive the space shuttles Discovery, Endeavour, Atlantis, and prototype shuttle Enterprise at a press conference held on the fiftieth anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s flight and the thirtieth anniversary of the first launch of Columbia. Discovery has already flown its final mission. Endeavour‘s final launch is scheduled for April 29 and Atlantis‘s final launch for June 28.
The disposition of the shuttles is:
STS-134, the final flight for the space shuttle Endeavour has been postponed from April 19 until April 29. The delay removes a scheduling conflict with a Russian Progress supply vehicle scheduled to launch April 27 and arrive at the station April 29.
James Vanover (b.1957), an employee of United Space Alliance, fell to his death from Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center on March 14. Vanover was helping prepare the space shuttle Endeavour for its final launch, scheduled for April 19. Vanover had worked at NASA since 1983. According to NASA officials, Vanover is the first launch pad fatality since 1981, shortly before the maiden launch of Columbia. More details have not been released pending a safety investigation.
Mark Kelly, whose wife Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head during a public meeting on January 8, has confirmed that he will command the final scheduled flight of the space shuttle Endeavour, currently scheduled for an April 19 launch. Kelly has flown three previous shuttle missions and his brother is currently on the ISS.
United Space Alliance has proposed the Commercial Space Transportation Service, which would keep two orbiters in the space shuttle fleet, Atlantis and Endeavour active and flying two missions each year from 2013 through 2017 while the United States gets a new generation of manned launch vehicles ready. NASA has not officially commented on the USA plan and is publicly stating that the current plans to send the three orbiters to museums.
The nominees for the 2009 Endeavour Awards, to be presented at OryCon 32 for fiction written by Pacific Northwest authors, have been announced. The award includes a grant of $1,000. This year’s panel of judges included Robin Wayne Bailey, Laura Anne Gilman, and Madeleine Robins.