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To Mars and beyond: NASA slates a busy year

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(CNN) -- Even by space agency standards, this year is shaping up to be a extraordinary one for NASA. The agency plans to return a hero to space, launch new space probes, begin work on an international space station and celebrate its 40th anniversary.

The year began with NASA sending astronaut Andrew Thomas to the space station Mir and retrieving David Wolf. Thomas is the last U.S. astronaut scheduled to spend time aboard Mir. The space shuttle Endeavour will return to Earth on January 31.

But the event likely to capture the most public attention will be John Glenn's second voyage into space. Glenn was the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the Earth, in a four-hour, 55-minute flight on February 20, l962. He was crammed so tightly into the small Friendship 7 capsule that he was jokingly referred to by space officials as the "man in a can."

Now a four-term senator from Ohio, Glenn will research aging in space on his 10-day mission, scheduled to launch on October 29, 1998. His title will be payload specialist.

Glenn will be 77 by the time of the launch -- considerably older than any other astronaut the United States has sent into space.

Glenn's mission will be one of six space shuttle flights NASA has scheduled in 1998.

NASA also will participate in the first stage of assembly in space of the international space station. On Thursday, 15 nations signed a pact outlining a framework for cooperation on the space station's design, development, operation and use.

Russia will launch and put into orbit the first module of the space station in June. NASA will follow by sending up the first two U.S.-built components aboard the space shuttle Endeavour. The shuttle will carry the Node 1 and two mating adapters into orbit in July.

This summer, NASA will launch the first of its two Deep Space projects, designed to give scientists a close look at an asteroid and test new technologies as a part of NASA's New Millennium Program. Deep Space 1 will travel close to an asteroid, pass by Mars and view a comet. Goals of the Deep Space 2 mission, scheduled to launch in January 1999, include sending microprobes to Mars to study its soil and attempt to determine if the red planet has water beneath its surface.

Ongoing projects expected to bear scientific results in 1998 include the Cassini space probe, currently en route to Saturn, and the Lunar Prospector, which is orbiting the moon in a search for water ice on the lunar surface.

In the midst of all this activity, the U.S. space agency will celebrate its 40th anniversary on October 1.


Main Story | Glenn Returns to Space | International Space Station
Mars Surveyor 98 | Stardust | Deep Space 1 & 2


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