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In Space You Really Can Hear Paul Sing
Houston TX (SPX) Nov 14, 2005 With their first spacewalk behind them, the crew of the International Space Station pressed ahead last week to prepare for several upcoming milestones. Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev got a special musical wakeup call this weekend when Paul McCartney connected with them live from a concert in Anaheim, Calif. The call took place at 12:55 a.m. EST Sunday and was broadcast live on NASA Television. McArthur and Tokarev spent the week servicing the spacesuits used Monday for a 5 hour, 22 minute excursion outside the station. During the spacewalk, they installed a television camera, jettisoned an inactive science experiment and removed and replaced other equipment on the truss system of the complex. The crew's second spacewalk is planned for Dec. 7. McArthur and Tokarev will don Russian Orlan spacesuits and exit the Pirs Docking Compartment airlock for that excursion. During the spacewalk, they will move a cargo crane adapter, collect science experiments from the hull of the Zvezda Service Module and manually launch an expired Russian spacesuit equipped with amateur radio equipment. Called SuitSat, the experiment is designed to see if ham radio contacts can be made with a free-flying transmitter. To prepare for the spacewalk, McArthur and Tokarev will relocate their Soyuz spacecraft from the Pirs docking port to the nadir docking port of the Zarya module on Nov. 18, briefly leaving the station unoccupied. Earlier Friday, four thruster engines on the Progress cargo spacecraft were fired for more than 33 minutes in two separate reboost maneuvers to raise the altitude of the outpost. The station is now in a near circular orbit of 219 miles to accommodate the launch and docking of the next resupply ship in December. The reboost was the longest ever completed using Progress engines. On Wednesday, Tokarev replaced a control panel for the station's toilet in Zvezda that had malfunctioned earlier in the week. The temporary loss of the use of the device's liquid disposal component had no impact on station operations. Following the troubleshooting, the toilet is now operating normally. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links ISS at NASA SpaceDaily Search SpaceDaily Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express Space Station News at Space-Travel.Com
NASA Had No Choice But To Buy Soyuz Flights
Washington DC (SPX) Jan 09, 2006NASA's announcement last week that it will pay Roskosmos $43.6 million for a round-trip ride to the International Space Station this spring, and an equivalent figure for an as-yet-undetermined number of future flights to the station until 2012, represents the agency's acknowledgment that it had no alternative. |
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