The space shuttle Endeavour returned to the Kennedy Space Center on Saturday after a ferry flight from California. The 747 aircraft carrying Endeavour landed Saturday morning; the aircraft took off from Edwards, where the shuttle landed on June 19, on Friday, with an overnight stop at an Air Force base in Missouri. The details of the ferry flight, including its route and schedule, were not disclosed by NASA as a security precaution.
The Ukrainian space agency has requested a major funding increase, Aerospace Daily reported Friday. The National Space Agency, which currently receives about $15 million a year, is asking for $300 million over five years. The increased funding would be used for ISS experiments, a new remote sensing satellite program, and upgraded Tsiklon, Dnepr, and Zenit boosters.
The fate of a moon rock from the Apollo 17 mission is in the hands of a federal judge in a dispute over its ownership. The rock was given as a gift to the government of Honduras, but made its way over the years into a hand of a Florida collector, Alan Rosen. After Roden verified the identity of the rock, he attempted to sell it, only to have it seized by federal agents. The rock, weighing just over one gram, is valued at up to $5 million.
