international space station

Editor’s note: This is a semester-long column recapping some of the exciting new scientific developments of the week.

Robert Starr is a Ph.D. student studying physics.

Shannon Walker, who was selected as an astronaut in 2004, checks in with NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce at Kennedy Space Center, where cheers went up as Atlantis departed for its 33rd and final voyage.

Nearby, among throngs of spectators, NPR's Greg Allen talks about the mood along Florida's Space Coast as the shuttle program ends after 30 years.

Atlantis will drop supplies at the International Space Station and return to Earth on July 20.

It’s come to the attention of this reporter that the Rapture is, in fact, going to occur.

Space shuttle Discovery, the workhorse of the shuttle fleet, has carried almost 200 astronauts and numerous science missions to space in its three decades of spaceflight.

It launches on its final flight, to the International Space Station, Thursday afternoon.

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Sir Isaac Newton famously formulated his theory of gravity while watching an apple fall from a tree. Now a bit of that tree is going zero gravity.

The space shuttle launching this Friday will carry a sliver of Newton's apple tree. The tree still grows at the physicist's old home in England.

A British-born astronaut will release the wood sliver at the international space station and let it "float around for a bit."

Japanese Astronaut Souichi Noguchi, in orbit on board the International Space Station, tweets images back to Earth.

Event: NASA astronaut Stephanie Wilson, an engineering alumnus who is the second black woman to have flown in space, will speak on her shuttle experiences.

The title of her speech is "Space Construction of the International Space Station: A Personal Journey." When: 2-3 p.m.

Thursday, Feb. 26 Where: Applied Computational Engineering and Sciences Building (ACES) Avaya Auditorium [...]