ISS Spacewalk complete

Cosmonaut outside the Russian Pirs Docking module.

The 147th spacewalk maintaining and assembling the ISS is now in the recordbooks. Cosmonauts FyodorYurchikhin and Mikhail Kornienko spent six hours and 42 minutes in the vacuum of space installing command and data cables outside several modules, and more specifically, adapting the Rassvet module to handle the automatic docking sequence of the Russian Progress supply ships.

The next Expedition 24 spacewalk is scheduled for August 5th in preparation for the mission of STS-123.

There was a quick moment of "OOPS" during this spacewalk, as the monitors caught a cable clamp and another small object get away from the spacewalkers and float off into space.

Second Attempt hits the mark

Here comes Progress.

Sunday morning about 10-something am MDT, the Russian mission control team managed to get the Progress resupply capsule in position for a second attempt at docking with ISS. The attempt was a success, and the Expedition 24 team is busy unloading the supplies from the storage capsule.

It turned out that one of the television systems aboard the spacecraft had unexpectedly blocked the rendezvous & docking radio signals (called TORU), which triggered an automatic system preventing the spacecraft from nearing the ISS. Which of course means that the Progress control system worked exactly as it was supposed to, preventing an untimely crash. A new procedure was developed for the second attempt. No doubt the Russian teams will be working hard to prevent this from happening again.

The next big event scheduled for Expedition 24 will be on July 26th when two cosmonauts will make an EVA to do some maintenance outside the station.

Russian Soyuz takes off, misses ISS

Russian Progress rocket on blast off

Recently the Russian space agency launched a Progress mission to resupply the ISS. As it is unmanned and controlled from the ground by the Russian mission control, the Progress system has been generally well managed and reliable. This time something went wrong.

What the ISS astronauts aren't seeing... yet.

Telemetry with the Progress capsule was lost. Without guidance, the capsule flew right on by the ISS. It's at a different altitude so there is no danger of collision. There is no resupply yet, either. Even though they have no contact with the capsule, the Russians are telling everyone that they are still in control of the craft. Please, someone, tell me the logic behind that statement?

Here's hoping, though, that the Russians do manage to regain control and continue to resupply the station. After all, we only have two shuttle flights left before the STS program is cancelled, and then we will be TOTALLY DEPENDENT on the Russians for rides and supply to the ISS.

Anyone else feel queasy about that?

Expedition 23 ends, Exp. 24 begins

Soyuz lands in Kazakhstan

The command crew of ISS Expedition 23 landed on Earth June 1st. The day before, the command team of Expedition 24 took command of ISS when the Soyuz undocked carrying the three members of Exp. 23. The 24 command crew had arrived earlier on April 4th.

The second group of Expedition 24 blasted off from Kazakhstan on Tuesday, June 15.

Soyuz rocket stands by for night launch.

Cosmonauts and astronauts in cramped Soyus capsule.

With the docking of the latest Soyuz ferry capsule, the Expedition crew goes into full operational mode. Docking occurred Thursday June 17th. The commander of the Expedition 24 mission is Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov.

Three Droids in zero-G

Expedition 24 is continuing the work with three "droids" of project SPHERE (Synchronized Position, Hold, Engage and Reorient Experimental Satellites). These little floating guys remind many of us of the "remote" droid in Star Wars. They are flying around in the ISS experimenting with formation flying, positional maneuvers, and other guidance experiments. The droids have been up there since 2006. Each is the size of a bowling ball.

STS-132: Atlantis lands for last time.

Atlantis falls through the sky.

Shuttle Atlantis brought the crew of mission STS-132 home to Kennedy Space Center just before 7 a.m. MDT this morning. Commander Ken Ham and pilot Tony Antonelli flew the orbiter in for a picture-perfect landing on the long runway.

Easy does it... Careful, now...

Atlantis has been flying now for 25 years since 1985. This was scheduled to be Atlantis' last mission in space, but the orbiter will be prepped and stand-by as an emergency vehicle during the November launch of shuttle Endeavor.

Drogue parachute slows Atlantis down until the brakes can do their job.

STS-132: Atlantis on her way home

ISS robot arm in foreground, Atlantis down below.

Orbiter Atlantis undocked from the International Space Station this morning at 9:22 MDT. The STS-132 crew performed a fly-around maneuver to circle the space station before firing the thrusters to put some distance between the two spacecraft.

View of ISS from Atlantis. The shuttle is about 650 feet away, looping over the top of ISS during the fly-around maneuver.

Atlantis is expected to make a landing Wednesday. Please remember that the pictures I use are NASA and NASA TV credited. Our good tax dollars at work. More later.

STS-132: Wrapping up the mission

After completing the third and final spacewalk of the mission, the batteries on the truss had been replaced and the Russian mini science module installed. On Saturday the crew of the shuttle Atlantis continued moving supplies out of the orbiter and loading items that were to return to Earth for study or refurbishment.

Farewell ceremony at the hatch in ISS.

While most of us were still sleeping this morning, the crews bade each other farewell and prepared for undocking later this morning. The hatch was closed at 6:43 a.m. MDT. Undocking is scheduled for 9:22 a.m. MDT.