Sir Alec Guinness, best known to SF fans as Obi-Wan Kenobi, dies at the age of 86. He was a working actor for over six decades, though directors had to beg him into participating in his two best-known outings – Star Wars and The Bridge Over The River Kwai; indeed, in recent years, he has made his disdain for the former project very well known to any fans who dared to ask. Reports around the time of his death indicated that Sir Alec Guinness has been suffering from liver cancer. He is survived by his wife and son.
Big Finish Productions 
Showtime airs the 126th episode of The Outer Limits, a revival of the 1960s science fiction anthology series. 
Pay cable channel Showtime premieres the 72nd episode of Stargate SG-1. Marina Sirtis (Star Trek: The Next Generation) guest stars.
Sci-Fi Channel premieres the 
Toho releases 
Sci-Fi Channel premieres the 
Sci-Fi Channel premieres the 
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TVT Records releases 
Space Shuttle Atlantis lifts off on the 99th shuttle mission, a 12-day visit to the still-unoccupied International Space Station. Spacewalks and work in the station’s pressurized compartments make the final connections between the Russian-launched Zvezda service module and the rest of the station, and over three tons of supplies – most flown aboard Atlantis, but some contained in an unmanned Progress supply ship which has already automatically docked to the station – are transferred to the station. Atlantis’ 21st crew is Commander Terrence Wilcutt, Pilot Scott Altman, and mission specialists Daniel Burbank, Edward Lu, Richard Mastracchio, Yuri Malenchenko and Boris Morokov. In 2003, Lu and Malenchenko will return as the station’s seventh full-time residents.
Sci-Fi Channel premieres the 
Sci-Fi Channel premieres the 
Big Finish Productions 
After four years of ballooning costs and launch weight, NASA brings work on the proposed Pluto-Kuiper Express mission to a stop, citing cost overruns and angering planetary scientists. The scientific community protests that, if a mission is not launched to reach Pluto by the year 2020, the tiny planet’s atmosphere will undergo a kind of reverse sublimation process, transitioning from a gas to a solid that rains down to Pluto’s surface. But with mission plans calling for a half-billion-dollar mission (originally budgeted for only $350 million), NASA pulls the plug, announcing that it will solicit new mission designs and plans from scientists around the world, even as advocates for the Pluto-Kuiper Express mission rally around the cancelled proposal.
The 79th episode of Joss Whedon’s supernatural series Buffy The Vampire Slayer, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, airs on the WB network. James Marsters, Anthony Stewart Head, and Alyson Hannigan also star. Michelle Trachtenberg makes her first appearance as Dawn in the fifth season premiere.
Basta Records releases 
The 67th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict, airs in syndication, starring Robert Leeshock, Jayne Heitmeyer, Von Flores, and Richard Chevolleau. Lisa Howard (Highlander) guest stars in the fourth season premiere.
The week-long national syndication window opens for the 
The first episode of James Cameron & Charles H. Eglee’s cyberpunk series Dark Angel, starring Jessica Alba and Michael Weatherly, premieres on Fox. Though Cameron’s name is used to heavily promote the new series, the feature-length pilot is directed by David Nutter (The X-Files). Stanley Kamel (Monk) and John Savage guest star.