AstroBebop » ISS

Back from Space. Clown Guy Laliberte touches Earth after poetic mission

flyingeraser — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:45:57 +0000

Exhausted but happy, the men are safe and sound back on Earth.

The members of the returning ISS crew and the space tourist Guy Laliberte successfully landed in Kazakhstan before travelling to the Star City in the Moscow region.

STS-127 Hatch Opening – Astronauts Meet

flyingeraser — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 20:52:52 +0000

Astronauts are scheduled to open the hatches between the two spacecraft at 3:43 p.m. EDT (1943 GMT). When the newcomers join the existing International Space Station (ISS) crew of six, the total population onboard will be a record 13.

Endeavour commander Mark Polansky, pilot Doug Hurley, and mission specialists Chris Cassidy, Julie Payette, Tom Marshburn, Tim Kopra and Dave Wolf will make for a crowded station when they join ISS crewmembers Gennady Padalka, Roman Romanenko, Michael Barratt, Robert Thirsk, Frank De Winne and Koichi Wakata. All five space station member organizations – NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, and the European Space Agency – will be represented.

Astronauts Drink their Recycled Urine for the First Time

flyingeraser — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 02:51:24 +0000

“This has been the stuff of science fiction. Everybody’s talked about recycling water in a closed loop system, but nobody’s ever done it before. Here we are today with the first round of recycled water… We’re really happy for this day and for the team that put this together. This is the kind of technology that will get us to the moon and further.”

NASA’s Mission Control gave the Expedition 19 astronaut crew aboard the International Space Station a “go” to drink water that the station’s new recycling system has purified.

Mission Control radioed the news to the crew Wednesday, May 20, following a report from the Water Recovery System team that station program managers approved. The decision is an important milestone in the development of the station’s environmental and life support systems, which will begin supporting six-person crews at the end of May.

Expedition 19 Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineers Mike Barratt and Koichi Wakata celebrated the decision with a toast in the Destiny laboratory.