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International Space Station

November 2, 2011 by · Comments Off on International Space Station 

International Space Station, An unmanned resupply spacecraft docked with the International Space Station early Wednesday, the first meeting as the orbiting laboratory since the last mission of space shuttle Atlantis in July.

Spacecraft Progress 45P Russian space agency arrived at the ISS at 7:41 a.m. ET Sunday after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on a Soyuz rocket.

The supply ship brought 2.8 tons of food, fuel and supplies to the space station. Even loading a couple of Apple Cases, according to reports.

NASA officials praised the work carried out by their Russian counterparts in the resumption of flights to the ISS just months after a fault on a Soyuz rocket condemned a similar mission in August unmanned resupply.

Since ending his NASA space shuttle program earlier this year, manned missions to the ISS has been the sole province of the Russian space agency.

Astronaut Mike Fossum NASA, currently aboard the ISS, said Sunday after the launch of a resupply mission success was an important step in the resumption of manned flight to the ISS, which have been delayed, while the Russian space officials investigated the accident that caused the August mission to fail.

“After the accident at the launch of a Progress cargo vehicle a couple of months, there has been some uncertainty in the program,” Fossum, was quoted by Space.com. “This is a big step. This helps clean the rocket of the underlying problems, so the next crew of the Soyuz Baikonur has gone.”

The launch on Sunday was the second success of the participation of a Soyuz rocket from the failure of the mission in August. The European Space Agency Soyuz rocket used to launch a pair of satellites in orbit as part of the Galileo project in French Guiana last month.

The ISS is currently home to a barebones team of three astronauts who are scheduled to return to Earth on November 21. The space station normally houses six crew members, or two teams of three astronauts, who more or less than five months long trips in the orbiting laboratory and 100 million are staggered to allow new equipment to keep the station fully open as long as possible.

But the August accident delayed manned missions to the space station and Russian space authorities have struggled to identify and solve the problem with their Soyuz rockets, now say they are good to go. A team of members of the crew of the ISS space station back in September and whether the current program continues, a new team took off from the station on November 13 and will arrive on November 15, just days before astronauts aboard is now set to go.

If the November 13 launch was delayed for some reason, the ISS, in all likelihood, unmanned for a period of time, for the first time in 11 years.

International Space Station

July 19, 2011 by · Comments Off on International Space Station 

International Space StationInternational Space Station, This morning, the space shuttle Atlantis separated from the International Space Station for the last time from his two-day journey back to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After eight days, 15 hours, 21 minutes, the shuttle undocked from the ISS at 2:28 am, ET, whereas it was 243 miles above the Pacific, east of Christchurch, New Zealand. At 4:18 a.m., Atlantis fired its jets and formally separated from the space station.

Before starting his journey home, mission specialists Rex Walheim and sand Magnus took pictures of the ISS from 600 feet above the station, catch the corners of the ship has never seen before on a flight around said NASA.

The crew began a system of inspection of the shuttle thermal protection shortly after 6 am. Crewmembers used the 50-foot long Orbiter Boom Sensor System to conduct a 3D scan of the areas of the wing leading edges and nose cap, which experience the highest heating during the income. Officials in Mission Control will review the data for heat shield in the coming days to make sure everything is running.

In all, NASA has completed 37 missions devoted to assembly and maintenance of the space station for a total of 276 days, 11 hours and 23 minutes, or weeks, almost 40.

Yesterday, the Atlantis crew successfully loads the luggage bay of the vehicle, the deposit of the 21-foot storage bin Raffaello back to Atlantis. It was filled to the ISS 9403 pounds of spare parts, equipment and supplies, including other 2677 pounds of food to sustain the full crew of the ISS next year. Comes with 5,700 kilos of supplies, including defective parts, and a good amount of trash that had accumulated on the ISS.

Atlantis is scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center at 5:56 am EDT Thursday. The night before, construction of New York Empire State Building will be lit in red; white and blue in honor of the NASA program the space shuttle.

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