Astronauts take iconic last photo of shuttle
Source: Agencies |
May 24, 2011, Tuesday
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HALF the International Space Station crew departed for earth yesterday, leaving behind the visiting shuttle Endeavour and a parting gift for NASA - a legacy photograph of the shuttle parked at the orbital outpost.
As the 30-year-old shuttle program winds down, NASA has been looking for an opportunity to capture an iconic image of one of its orbiters on the job at the space station.
The United States will have devoted 37 of its 135 space shuttle flights to construction and support of the space station by the time the program ends after one last cargo run in July.
"Hopefully those pictures will show up in textbooks for years to come," said Kenneth Todd, a space station manager.
"It would be great to have the space shuttle represented there with us, as well as all the other international partners."
The only way to get the shot is from aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule, the vehicles used to transport station crews to and from the outpost.
It will be the first time a shuttle and the space station have appeared together from a remote vantage point, with a planetary view of Earth in the background.
The Endeavour crew, which has completed two of four spacewalks for station maintenance, has some off-duty yesterday.
The primary goal of the mission, which began on May 16, was to deliver the US$2 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer particle detector and spare parts for the station.
Three new station crewmembers - cosmonaut Sergi Volkov, NASA astronaut Michael Fossum and Japan's Satoshi Furukawa - are scheduled to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on June 7.
As the 30-year-old shuttle program winds down, NASA has been looking for an opportunity to capture an iconic image of one of its orbiters on the job at the space station.
The United States will have devoted 37 of its 135 space shuttle flights to construction and support of the space station by the time the program ends after one last cargo run in July.
"Hopefully those pictures will show up in textbooks for years to come," said Kenneth Todd, a space station manager.
"It would be great to have the space shuttle represented there with us, as well as all the other international partners."
The only way to get the shot is from aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule, the vehicles used to transport station crews to and from the outpost.
It will be the first time a shuttle and the space station have appeared together from a remote vantage point, with a planetary view of Earth in the background.
The Endeavour crew, which has completed two of four spacewalks for station maintenance, has some off-duty yesterday.
The primary goal of the mission, which began on May 16, was to deliver the US$2 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer particle detector and spare parts for the station.
Three new station crewmembers - cosmonaut Sergi Volkov, NASA astronaut Michael Fossum and Japan's Satoshi Furukawa - are scheduled to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on June 7.
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