Fwd: Space station crew flies home tonight

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: May 13, 2013 8:40:02 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Space station crew flies home tonight

 

 

      May 13, 2013 7:04 AM 

Space station's Canadian commander flies home tonight

Fans cheer Hadfield's tweets, Earthly return

 

Change of command ceremony aboard ISS 5-12-13: Expedition 35 Commander Chris Hadfield handed command of the station over to Expedition 36 Commander Pavel Vinogradov during a ceremony held on Sunday, May 12, 2013. NASA video

Written by
Todd Halvorson
FLORIDA TODAY

Zoom

@Cmdr_Hadfield: Open the window cover and you suddenly see the harshly-lit Station against the velvet blackness of forever.

Zoom

Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield strums his guitar in the International Space Station's Cupola on Dec. 25, 2012. / NASA

CAPE CANAVERAL — The International Space Station's first Canadian commander will return to Earth tonight in what will be an emotional end for more than one million followers on Twitter, Facebook and other websites.

http://www.gannett-tv.com/tools/brightcove/playvideo.ashx?sid=flat&bctid=2377402287001 target="_blank">Mobile users: Tap here to watch the ISS change of command ceremony

During his five-month tour on the space station, Ontario native Chris Hadfield became a social media superstar, posting breathtaking images of Earth along with lyrical descriptions of his hand-selected locales. He also sent back videos detailing everyday life on the outpost.

"It will be a great day and a sad day when you touch down on earth! Thank you for your brilliance and for sharing your incredible journey with us!" Sara Knight-Rushton wrote this month on Hadfield's Facebook wall.

"What will we do without you to provide such a unique perspective on our planet, which is such a small part of our universe …unbelievable!" added Lori N'Scott Earle. "We will miss those amazing pictures along with their equally captivating quips."

Hadfield, U.S. astronaut Thomas Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko are scheduled to depart the space station at 7:08 p.m. EDT, just two days after an emergency spacewalk to repair a coolant leak on the outpost. They will begin a fiery atmospheric re-entry at 9:37 p.m. Landing on the central steppes of Kazakhstan is scheduled at 10:31 p.m.

Three colleagues will remain on the outpost: Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin, and U.S. astronaut Chris Cassidy. Another three will launch from Kazakhstan on May 28 and dock at the station that night. They are Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, U.S. astronaut Karen Nyberg and Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency.

Hadfield, Marshburn and Romanenko blasted off on a Russian Soyuz rocket on Dec. 19 and arrived at the outpost two days later, joining three others. Hadfield took command of the station when those three departed in mid-March.

During his 146 days in space, Hadfield became a space ambassador and arguably the world's most famous Canadian. He has more than 750,000 followers on Twitter and 236,000 likes on his Facebook page. Some 277,000 have Hadfield in Google-Plus Circles, and the astronaut-extraordinaire has tallied about 850,000 video views on his YouTube channel.

Hadfield's video repertoire includes digital demonstrations of "How To Barf, Puke And Vomit In Space;" "How To Wring Out A Washcloth In Space;" "How Astronauts Clip Their Nails In Space;" and "How To Make A Peanut Butter And Honey Sandwich In Space." 

On SoundCloud, Hadfield posted audio files that include a variety of ambient sounds heard on the outpost: the station's toilet starting up and running steady; a caution-and-warning system alarm; the rickety-rackety operation of a resistive exercise machine; the "very grating" sound of a condensate pump. 

An accomplished musician, Hadfield recorded and distributed the first original music produced on the station — he converted the Cupola observatory deck into an orbital recording studio. 

And, strumming an acoustic guitar, Hadfield joined Ed Robertson of the alternative rock band Barenaked Ladies in the space-to-ground, live Canadian national network television premiere of a song the two wrote together: "I.S.S. (Is Somebody Singing)." 

But it's the stunningly beautiful Earth imagery and the eloquent captions that have captivated people around the world. 

"You've gained a whole host of friends the world over through your wonderful, humane, poetic, scientific, musical, quirky posts that have let us share your very different perspective on Mother Earth for a few months," Helen Carter of Southampton, U.K, wrote on Hadfield's Facebook wall.

"It has truly been an eye-opening and amazing ride, with you onboard, Sir!" wrote Pedro Nortes. "It's going to be very, very hard to find anyone with your charisma, and people skills, who also can be a poet, photographer, a writer, director, actor, musician, teacher, magician….Need I say more?" 

Many will miss the presence of a renaissance man on ISS. 

"I truly hope you realize how much you've done for us Earthlings to be able to understand (an) astronaut's life up among the stars," Alexander de Quimper wrote on Hadfield's Facebook wall. 

Sonja Garant dubbed him: "Officially the coolest Canadian in the solar system."

 

Contact Halvorson at thalvorson@floridatoday.com

 

Copyright © 2013 www.floridatoday.com. All rights reserved. 

 

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Ground control to Major Tom: ISS commander sings David Bowie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KaOC9danxNo (YouTube / May 12, 2013)

By Geoffrey Mohan This post has been corrected, as noted below

May 12, 2013, 6:17 p.m.

International Space Station Expedition 35 Commander Chris Hadfield returns to Earth, and eventually Canada, on Monday. So, what better way to end the mission than doing a personalized rendition of David Bowie's classic "A Space Oddity," in the first music video from space.

Hadfield, from the Canadian Space Agency, has been one chatty dude up there in the International Space Station, tweeting constantly during the Expedition 35 mission, which included a precedent-setting emergency spacewalk this weekend to repair an ammonia coolant leak.

Hadfield has a huge following on Twitter: Some 773,118 Earthlings were following him as of Sunday afternoon. Among the gems today were "Canada rocks," with a picture of the Canadian Rockies. He even expressed hope that the Boston Bruins would play "a memorable game against the Leafs," a Canadian team.

In the video, Hadfield is seen floating through the station, playing acoustic guitar, and peering out into space through one of the station's ports.

The first Canadian commander of the station, Hadfield handed over command to Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov.

Hadfield was raised on a corn farm in southern Ontario, according to his NASA biography. At age 15, he won a glider pilot scholarship, and a year later he won a powered pilot scholarship. He also taught skiing and ski racing part- and full-time for 10 years, according to NASA. The rest of the bio is the usual astronaut overachievement: testing ridiculously fast aircraft, doing major research and building his resume as the coolest Canadian ever. 

The Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft will un-dock from the station at 7:08 p.m. Eastern time Monday, officially ending Expedition 35 and carrying Hadfield, Tom Marshburn and Flight Engineer Roman Romanenko back to Earth. They are scheduled for a 10:31 p.m. landing in southern Kazakhstan, wrapping up 146 days in space, according to NASA.

Among the highlights of the mission were tests of the Canadian Dextre robot as part of NASA's robotic refueling mission, which the agency hopes will one day enable astronauts to retrieve, refuel and repair satellites in orbit around Earth.

Copyright © 2013, Los Angeles Times

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Space Station Crew Returns to Earth Tonight: How to Watch it Live

by Tariq Malik, SPACE.com Managing Editor

Date: 13 May 2013 Time: 07:54 AM ET

 

 

 

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, Expedition 35 commander, poses in his Russian Sokol spacesuit while preparing for a May 13, 2013 landing on a Soyuz spacecraft. CREDIT: Canadian Space Agency/Chris Hadfield (Cmdr_Hadfield) View full size image

After months living in space, two astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut will return home from the International Space Station tonight (May 13) and you can watch their landing live online.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, American astronaut Tom Marshburn and cosmonaut Roman Romanenko are preparing to leave the space station aboard a Russian-built Soyuz spacecraft for a planned landing at 10:31 p.m. EDT (0231 May 14 GMT) on the Central Asian steppes of Kazakhstan, where the local time will be early Tuesday morning.

You can watch the Soyuz landing webcast live on SPACE.com, courtesy of NASA. The webcast will begin at 6:45 p.m. EDT (2245 GMT) to show the Soyuz departing the space station.  [See photos of the Expedition 35 mission]

The Soyuz landing will mark the end of the station's Expedition 35 mission, which Hadfield commanded, and comes just two days after an emergency spacewalk on Saturday (May 11) by Marshburn and NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy to fix a serious ammonia coolant leak on the station. The leak was detected on Thursday (May 9), forcing Mission Control and the astronauts to come up with the impromptu spacewalk plans in record time.

 

 

"The real-time execution of that is what made me feel so good as a commander of this crew," Hadfield said Sunday (May 13) as he handed command over to Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov, who will lead the station's Expedition 36 mission.

Vinogradov will remain behind on the space station with Cassidy and fellow Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin. They will be joined by three new crewmembers in late May.

Hadfield, Marshburn and Romanenko are wrapping up a five-month mission to the space station that began in December. The launched as part of the station's Expedition 34 crew, with Hadfield taking command of the Expedition 35 mission midway through the flight.

Hadfield, Canada's first space station commander, shared his spaceflight with millions around the world by tapping into social media. He recorded songs and videos about life in space, shared photos via Twitter and Facebook and even had a close digital encounter with the captain of the Starship Enterprise —Canadian actor William Shatner, Captain Kirk on TV's 'Star Trek'— during his time on the station.

But, Hadfield said, this weekend's unprecedented spacewalk repair of the station's cooling system was the pinnacle of the mission.

"For me this was just a personification of what the international space station is, and what the people mean to it," Hadfield said. "This is a human research vessel. We've shared it with millions of people around the world, and we've done our absolute best to accomplish the work on board. "

Officials in Mission Control agreed.

"You, the crew of Expedition 35, have been nothing short of tremendous," Mission Control radioed to the station crew. "Not only have the efforts of Expedition 35 been extraordinary, but you've manage to bring us all along with you on your space odyssey."

With the station's six-man crew now splitting up to go their separate ways, Vinogradov called it a "sad day" in space.During Expedition 35, the station crew performed two spacewalks and welcomed several unmanned spacecraft carrying cargo, including a private SpaceX Dragon capsule in March.

"You guys are wonderful. We worked together so well," Vinogradov said. "I think we will miss you badly, guys."

The International Space Station is the largest manmade structure in space and has been continuously manned by rotating crews of astronauts and cosmonauts since 2000. Construction of the $100 billion orbiting laboratory began in 1998. Five different space agencies representing 15 countries built the space station.

Tonight's space station departure will begin at 7:08 p.m. EDT (2308 GMT), when the Soyuz TMA-07M space capsule that ferried Hadfield and his crew to the space station is due to undock from the orbiting laboratory. At 9:37 p.m. EDT (0137 May 14 GMT), the Soyuz is expected to fire its rocket engine in a maneuver to leave orbit and place it on track for a 10:31 p.m. EDT landing.

"Enormous thanks to everybody on Earth that makes this possible," Hadfield said. "It's been a very special time for all of us onboard."

 

 

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