Przed 17. rocznicą STS-127.Crew gears up for space construction marathonJune 9, 2009, 12:42 AM GMT+2 / Source: Space.com By Tariq Malik
(...) As planned, the mission will tie the record for longest shuttle flight to the station. It will also mark the first time 13 people have lived aboard the outpost at the same time since the station doubled its population to full six-person crew in May. (...)
Leading Endeavour's crew is Polansky, 53, a two-time shuttle flier making his third trip to the space station. This mission is Polansky's first foray into the online micro-blogging Web site Twitter, where he has been detailing the mission under the handle @Astro_127.
"I really want people in every walk of life to understand that NASA exists," said Polansky, who has tens of thousands of followers and is the second NASA astronaut to use the social networking tool on a mission. (...)
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna31175229Astronauts Launch Satellite, Prep for LandingAssociated Press Published July 30, 2009 1:18pm EDT | Updated January 14, 2015 12:53am EST
(...) In one of NASA's longer shuttle flights, Polansky and his crew put a new addition onto the international space station — a porch for Japan's massive $1 billion lab — and freshened up the place with batteries, experiments and spare parts. They rocketed into space July 15.
Thursday marked Day 15 in space for Polansky and all but one of his crew. For Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, Thursday marked Day 137. He flew to the space station back in March, becoming the first person from Japan to live at the orbiting outpost.
Wakata said he's longing for sushi.
"That's the first thing that I'd like to have and also a hot spring in Japan sometime in the near future," Wakata told the AP.
One of Wakata's space station experiments involved wearing a new type of anti-bacterial, water-absorbent, odor-eliminating underwear provided by Japanese researchers.
He's bringing back the used undergarments for scientific analysis.
"I haven't talked about this underwear to my crew members," Wakata said, drawing a big laugh from his shuttle colleagues. "But I wore them for about a month, and my station crew members never complained for about a month, so I think the experiment went fine."
The underwear is called J-Wear, and includes a line of shirts, pants and socks as well. Wakata tested all of them during his mission. "We'll see the results after landing," Wakata said.
J-Wear is billed as being antistatic and flame retardant, which is especially important for spaceship wear. The clothes are also seamless, making them lighter and more comfortable, according to the Japanese Space Agency. The goal is "comfortable everyday clothes for life in a spaceship."
On Thursday morning, the shuttle astronauts released a small canister containing a navigation, rendezvous and docking experiment prepared by University of Texas and Texas A&M researchers. In the afternoon, they planned to launch an atmospheric density experiment, so scientists can better understand how orbiting objects move and eventually come down. (...)
https://www.foxnews.com/story/astronauts-launch-satellite-prep-for-landing
Wątek: ML Polansky - 02.06.1956 (Przeczytany 466 razy)