Good and bad space news

Sometimes you have to take the good with the bad. The good news is that the Space Shuttle Discovery had an apparently flawless flight to orbit last night after a launch at one minute before midnight. It's carrying a crew member and supplies (including the COLBERT) to the International Space Station. You can read more about the mission on NASA's STS-128 page. The bad news is that it looks like the Indian Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter has gone silent, and is presumed dead. It was not yet halfway through its two year mission, but has done quite a bit of interesting science, including looking for water buried under the surface at the Moon's poles. Emily Lakdawalla with The Planetary Society has more details.