Last week's historic flyby of Mercury by NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft gathered 500 megabytes of data and more than a thousand high-resolution photos covering nearly six million square miles of previously unseen terrain.

A cutting-edge laboratory has opened in Alabama. Its mission: to combat diseases ranging from asthma to malaria to stroke using data from NASA satellites. Space scientists and public health officials are working together to train the doctors of tomorrow in this far-out approach to medicine.

Images from NASA telescopes are jewels of the space program, marvelous to behold. But how do you behold them when you can't see? The answer lies between the covers of a new NASA-funded book written in Braille, Touch the Invisible Sky.

At a pivotal moment of the solar cycle, the NASA/ESA Ulysses spacecraft is flying over the sun's mysterious North Pole.

Hang on to your cell phones, a new solar cycle is underway. Solar Cycle 24 began last week with the appearance of a magnetically "backward" high-latitude sunspot.

NASA is bringing high-tech satellite images and visualization tools to bear on the unique environmental problems of Central America.

ATK have officially unveiled their new vehicle, which is targeted at a near-term solution for their COTS partner PlanetSpace, as well as satellite and planetary markets. Unnamed, but known in the industry as Athena III, the three stage vehicle is based on a 2.5 segment Solid Rocket Booster, with an ATK Castor 120 second stage, topped off with an ATK Castor 30 third stage and Orbit Adjust Module (OAM).

With just over half a month until the launch of shuttle Atlantis on STS-122, her return to a launch posture picks up the pace with a set of Flight Readiness Reviews (FRRs) over the next 10 days. The FRRs will give a final review of flight rationale, following the replacement of ET-125's LH2 Feed-through connector - along with other elements of the shuttle that have been sitting on launch pad 39A since November.

As the associate administrator, Shin will be responsible for managing the agency's aeronautics research portfolio and guiding its strategic direction.

Following a NASA Constellation budget review - which found the program has a short term deficit of $700m - managers have presented a re-aligned development and test flight schedule, in an attempt to protect Orion's debut mission to the ISS in 2015. Among numerous changes, Ares I-Y is to be delayed by a year, Orion's 1-3 are delayed between nine and three months, while Ares V's lunar mission debut with Orion 13 will now be an unmanned fly-by.

NASA will hold a media briefing on Thursday, Jan. 24, at 12:30 p.m. EST, to discuss the agency's Earth science program and preview major activities planned for 2008.

On Friday, Jan. 25, NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale will deliver a keynote address at 8:45 a.m. PST, at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

Covering 50 years of NASA history, the calendar has been distributed to schools nationwide.

Thursday's Program Requirements Control Board (PRCB) meeting has been presented with documentation that adds confidence to the initial findings of a "smoking gun" during testing of ET-125's removed external LH2 Feed-through connector. At the same time, plans are being put into place to use a special grease gun on the problematic starboard SARJ (Solar Alpha Rotary Joint) on the International Space Station (ISS).

NASA-funded astronomers are monitoring a Tunguska-sized asteroid that will pass within 30,000 miles of Mars on Jan. 30, 2008. Based on data currently available, the space rock has a 1-in-75 chance of actually hitting Mars and blasting a crater more than half-a-mile wide.

The official decision on the future of Atlantis has finally been made, as she avoids early retirement in 2008 - gaining STS-128 and STS-131 in the process via new planning documentation. Atlantis' flagship mission - STS-125's trip to service the Hubble Space Telescope - has been delayed by one month, to September 5, as the bulk of the manifest moves to the right by around 30 days, due to the slip of STS-122 to February 7.

High school students were challenged to create concepts that could accelerate the personal spaceflight industry.

SOFIA has passed a significant mission milestone with the completion of the first phase of experimental flight tests, which confirmed the structural integrity and performance of the modified 747SP aircraft.

Consider it an early Christmas gift: On Dec. 24th the Moon and Mars are putting on a beautiful late-night sky show.

Sea Launch have finally returned to flight, with the lift-off of their Zenit-3SL launch vehicle, carrying the Thuraya 3 telecommunications satellite for the United Arab Emirates. Launch was at 11:49am GMT, with the satellite successsfully placed into its desired orbit. NASASpaceflight.com covered the launch as a live event, with extensive background, live updates, images and a free launch video - available now - on the links below (read more).