Subscribe to one of our news e-mail lists . A prototype spacecraft designed to serve as a lifeboat for the International Space Station will go aloft on March 30, a Dryden Flight Research Center spokesman said Wednesday. The demonstrator vehicle developed an unexpected electrical problem during an experimental flight two weeks ago, forcing NASA to scrub the test.
Mission technicians suspect random radiation caused the glitch.
A radio transmission along a particular frequency from a nearby source could have caused the power failure, Brown said. Members of the Buffalo Astronomical Association detected the gamma-ray explosion, among the most powerful in the universe, on March 4. The faint afterglow of the fireball was located near the constellation Hercules, which at this time of the year is easily observed in northern latitudes. Three days earlier, the NEAR asteroid orbiter and Ulysses solar observatory first detected the burst. Few professionals attempt to find the optical afterglow from gamma-ray explosions, but the amateur astronomers decided to try anyway.