Goddard engineers Richard Strafella, left, and Larry Dell hold a New Outer Blanket Layer, or NOBL, which features an external radiator panel. Astronauts will install this on Hubble during the final mission to the telescope this fall. Credit: NASA

The Kennedy Space Center reopened Friday, and the shuttle Atlantis is now in the 52 story tall Vehicle Assembly Building (the largest building on earth) being mated with the solid rocket boosters and external fuel tank. Saturday morning, it will be moved 4 miles to the launch pad on the crawler (one of 2 rocket moving devices built during the Apollo moon program, that, at a 1 mile-per-hour speed, gets 18 inches to the gallon!) for an Oct. 8 launch to the Hubble Space Telescope. During this flight, 5 EVAs (space walks) will be made to extend the Hubble's life 5 years to 2013. After this time, the Hubble, the world's most powerful and sophisticated telescope will be de-orbited into the ocean.

Oct. 4-10 is World Space Week at the UN, with 50 nations participating. 2009 will be the International Year of Astronomy, celebrating the 400th anniversary of Galileo's first look at the heavens with a primitive telescope.

Phoenix, the robotic Mars lander celebrates its 3rd month on the red planet this week, beginning an extended mission before it probably gives up the ghost in late September with the onset of Winter there. It is now digging at a record depth of 7 inches to find out about Mar's icy or wet past.