Latest flight engineer Stories
Two members of the International Space Station crew have begun a spacewalk to install experiments and an electromagnetic energy probe, NASA said Monday night. Expedition 18 Commander Mike Fincke and Flight Engineer Yury Lonchakov also plan to take photographs and relocate an experiment that measures thruster exhaust plumes, the space agency said on its Web site. The spacewalk began at 7:51 p.m. EST and was scheduled to last just over six hours. Lonchakov, the lead spacewalker, is making his...
The Expedition 18 crew aboard the International Space Station shifted its sleep schedule Sunday night and awoke later than usual to begin preparations for Monday night's spacewalk by Commander Mike Fincke and Flight Engineer Yury Lonchakov.Fincke and Lonchakov are scheduled to exit the Pirs airlock Monday around 7:15 p.m. EST for the six-hour excursion to install and retrieve science experiments from the station's exterior.They also will install a probe to measure electromagnetic potential...
ESA astronaut Frank De Winne is set to become the first European Commander of the International Space Station.De Winne, from Belgium, will fly to the Station in a Soyuz spacecraft in May 2009 with Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk, which will bring the total number of crew on the ISS up to six for the first time.For the first four months De Winne will be an International Space Station (ISS) Flight Engineer as a member of the Expedition 20...
Commander Edward Michael "Mike" Fincke and Flight Engineer Yury Valentinovich Lonchakov of the 18th International Space Station crew are scheduled to launch in their Soyuz TMA-13 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan about 3 a.m. EDT Sunday to begin a six-month stay in space.With Fincke, an Air Force colonel, and Lonchakov, a colonel in the Russian Air Force, will be spaceflight participant Richard Garriott, flying under contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency.Garriott...
International Space Station Commander Sergei Volkov and Flight Engineer Oleg Kononenko wrapped up a 6-hour, 18-minute spacewalk at 9:06 p.m. EDT Thursday. They inspected their Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft and retrieved a pyro bolt from it. The spacewalk comes in the wake of ballistic entries by the two most recent Soyuz spacecraft, entries that while safe resulted in high-G rides for the crews and landings hundreds of miles short of the planned recovery area. Russian engineers say they have...
The American commander of the International Space Station (ISS) set a new U.S. spaceflight record Wednesday as her crewmate geared up for an extra-long baseball pitch. NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, the station's first female commander, surpassed her 374th day in space to take the U.S. title for most cumulative time spent in orbit. By the time she lands on Saturday with flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko and South Korean astronaut So-yeon Yi, she'll increase her lead to 377 days in...
Expedition 16 Commander Peggy Whitson and Flight Engineer Dan Tani are replacing a motor at the base of one of the International Space Station's solar wings during a spacewalk that began at 4:56 a.m. EST Wednesday. Whitson is wearing the spacesuit with red stripes as the lead spacewalker, while Tani is wearing the spacesuit with broken stripes. The spacewalk, in U.S. suits, began from the station's Quest airlock.Most of the spacewalk focuses on replacement of the motor, called the Bearing...
ARKALYK, Kazakhstan -- American, Russian and Brazilian astronauts endured a bone-jarring, 3 1/2-hour ride from the international space station back to Earth on Sunday, landing on target in the freezing Kazakh steppe.The Russian TMA-7 capsule carried American commander Bill McArthur and Russian flight engineer Valery Tokarev, who each spent six months on the space station, as well as Brazilian astronaut Marcos Pontes. It touched down about 30 miles northeast of Arkalyk at 3:47 a.m. Moscow time...
By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - After turning over control of the International Space Station to a new crew, a U.S. astronaut, a Russian cosmonaut and a visiting guest astronaut from Brazil climbed into a Soyuz capsule on Saturday and fired its jets to return to Earth. Commander Bill McArthur, flight engineer Valery Tokarev and Brazil's first astronaut, Marcos Pontes, departed the orbital outpost shortly before 4:30 p.m. EDT and were expected to touch down in a...
NASA -- After traveling more than 78 million miles aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 10 Commander and NASA ISS Science Officer Leroy Chiao and Flight Engineer Salizhan Sharipov returned to Earth today. With them was European Space Agency Astronaut Roberto Vittori, who had spent eight days aboard the orbiting complex doing research. After a flawless descent by the ISS Soyuz 9 spacecraft, Chiao, Sharipov and Vittori landed on target in north-central Kazakhstan, about 53 miles...
