Space Station slam-dunk arrival begins with clean-up
Oct 19, 2004 14: 39 EST
Salizhan Sharipov, Yuri Shargin and Expedition 10 Commander Leroy Chiao left Earth from Kazakhstan in a Russian-built Soyuz spacecraft end last week. The guys were riding the craft for the first time.
The 2-day flight and docking was on autopilot, but there was a manual over-ride function in case of computer failure. Which was a good thing. Saturday a thruster failed, which forced them to hit the brakes, abandon auto-pilot, and manually dock the capsule. The landing was successful, becoming the first ever manual docking at night.
That's when they entered the station and reality set in. Home for the next six months for two of them, the 5 men did some house checks.
With no garbage pickups by shuttles in two years, the space station is pretty cluttered. About a month ago, the two astronauts who live there tossed out some useless junk, like so many old hubcaps for the trash heap, reports AP. Only this stuff floated away in space. The place is crammed and Mission Organization was useless as no one showed for the yard sale.
NASA official Bowersox acknowledges that a neat freak would be, well, freaking out aboard the space station. But he adds with a laugh: “From what I’ve been seeing, the folks they’ve been sending up there, we don’t really have a problem.”
Welcome home!
Chiao and Sharipov will spend six months on the Station, while Shargin will return to Earth October 24 with the Station's current residents, Expedition 9 Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Mike Fincke.
Image Astronaut Mike Fincke at work, surrounded by all sorts of items jammed into the air lock on the International Space Station. The air lock, not being used at present for staging space walks, doubles as a crowded closet. Courtesy thestar.com
|
|
Feature Stories |
|
Latest News |
more news |
 |
ExWeb updated expeditions list - Space!
Full Story
|
 |
Titan: Rain fall, methane rivers, volcanoes spewing ice
Full Story
|
 |
Life in Space - leaving Eden in search for Paradise
Full Story
|
 |
ET coming closer: Suns like ours spotted with planetary debris dis
Full Story
|
 |
The Wow signal - listen up!
Full Story
|
 |
Mars Society: Looking for a few good Martians - that's YOU buddy!
Full Story
|
 |
The Space Frontier Foundation
Full Story
|
|
|
| Discovery Returns to the Vehicle Assembly Building May 31, 2005 | | ExplorersWeb Week in Review May 30, 2005 | | Space tourists are not rocket scientists and might be super sized May 27, 2005 | | Olsen back to Space? May 26, 2005 | | "Robonauts" to help humans in space May 25, 2005 | | Interstellar exploration: Voyager enters the solar system's final frontier May 24, 2005 | | Russia plans manned mission to Mars, but money first May 23, 2005 | | ExplorersWeb Week in Review May 22, 2005 | | Rutan under-whelmed by NASA May 20, 2005 | | Space flight price wars May 19, 2005 |
| | NASA launches new explorer schools May 18, 2005 |
|
|
