NASA 2009 Year in Review

October 2009: water discovered on the moon by the LCROSS mission.

July 2009: 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing

May 2009: Hubble Space Telescope upgraded and repaired. Space walking astronauts from the Atlantis space shuttle gave the aging space telescope several new updated systems. Two new instruments, the Wide Field Camera 3 and Cosmic Origins Spectrograph were installed, while repairs were made to the Advanced Camera for Surveys and Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph systems. Stunning new images start streaming in.

2008: NASA marks 50th Anniversary.
International Space Station (ISS) celebrates 10th year in space.
Phoenix Lander arrives on Mars.

January 2004: Mars Rover mission lands with planetary rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Initially the rovers mission was three months, but both robotic explorers surprised the scientific community by lasting six Earth years on the Martian surface.

February 1, 2003: In memory of the crew of Space Shuttle Columbia, which disintegrated over Texas during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. All seven crew members aboard STS-107 were lost.
Commander: Rick D. Husband, U.S. Air Force colonel and mechanical engineer
Pilot: William C. McCool, U.S. Navy commander
Payload Commander: Michael P. Anderson, U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel and physicist
Payload Specialist: Ilan Ramon, colonel in the Israeli Air Force and the first Israeli astronaut
Mission Specialist: Kalpana Chawla, aerospace engineer from India on her second space mission
Mission Specialist: David M. Brown, U.S. Navy captain and flight surgeon
Mission Specialist: Laurel Clark, U.S. Navy captain and flight surgeon

October 2000: The first crew, Expedition One inhabits the International Space Station for 136 days.

www.nasa.gov