The planetarium has a 68-foot, domed Star Theater that features shows on exploring the night sky and the solar system, and on how astronauts prepare for space missions.

In addition to numerous housekeeping tasks, the astronauts prepared the spacecraft for its return to Earth, or atmospheric reentry the next day.

In addition to performing the inspection, the astronauts also prepared their spacesuits for the five planned spacewalks and gathered the tools they would need for the docking.

A Close-Knit Group The spouses had all become close in the previous two years, when the astronauts were preparing for their mission on the Columbia, whose launching was delayed 12 times for technical reasons.

An overloaded circuit breaker delayed the final spacewalk of the shuttle's 11-day mission by 45 minutes because it knocked out a depressurization pump in the airlock where the astronauts were preparing for their excursion.

The third stage remained attached to the spacecraft while it orbited the Earth two and a half times while astronauts and mission controllers prepared for translunar injection (TLI).

Five astronauts prepared today for a second attempt to launch the shuttle Discovery with the space agency's most valuable and celebrated payload, the $1.5 billion Hubble Space Telescope.

Unaware of the potential danger looming, the astronauts and the little flies sit back and prepare to come back home as heroes.

The astronauts aboard the space shuttle Endeavour snatched another satellite from orbit today and prepared for a second space walk in subzero temperatures, this one even colder than the first.

The two astronauts were preparing their orbiting space station today for what Western experts expect to be a record stay in space.