30 People Visit International Space Station in 2007 – Agency

MOSCOW. Dec 29 (Interfax-AVN) – Thirty people, including 23 American astronauts, four Russian cosmonauts, one representative of Malaysia and one of Italy, and U.S. space tourist Charles Simonyi, visited the International Space Station (ISS) this year, the Federal Space Agency said on Saturday.

Two Russian Soyuz manned spaceships, four Progress freighters and several U.S. space shuttles docked with the ISS over the same period, the agency said.

Currently, the ISS has the 16th crew, which includes U.S. astronauts Peggy Whitson and Daniel Tani and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko. The crew will see in New Year during their space mission.

The ISS will cross 15 time zones on the New Year night. The first time zone will be crossed southwest of New Zealand at 3:15 p.m. Moscow time on December 31, and the last in southern Pacific at 12:36 p.m. Moscow time on January 1.

The crew will see in New Year by Moscow time when the ISS flies above northwestern areas of South America, and by Washington time when it is above southeastern areas of the Pacific.

For details, see the Interfax – Military News Agency newswire.

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