In brief: Last shuttle gets warmed up

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA fueled space shuttle Atlantis on Wednesday, but it was only a test leading up to the last flight of the 30-year program.

Liftoff isn’t until July 8. Shuttle managers want to make sure that repairs to the external fuel tank are good and that no cracks pop up in any of the support brackets.

Preliminary checks indicated no cracking.

Short circuit on Cassini craft

PASADENA, Calif. – NASA says an instrument aboard the Cassini spacecraft studying Saturn and its moons is temporarily out of service.

The space agency said Wednesday the plasma spectrometer, which measures the energy of electrons and protons, was turned off this week as a precaution after a short circuit on the spacecraft.

Engineers are troubleshooting the problem. It’s not clear when the instrument will be back online. NASA says Cassini will continue to collect other data.

Cassini launched in 1997 and entered orbit around Saturn in 2004 to study its rings and many moons. The mission is a project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.