Astronauts installed the European laboratory Columbus on the International Space Station on Monday, finally giving Europe its first permanent research facility in space. Sunlight reflects from the European Space Agency's Columbus module as it is shown attached to the International Space Station (ISS) in this image from NASA TV February 11, 2008.
Houston, Munich, the European Columbus laboratory module is now part of the ISS. The $1.9 billion Columbus lab, 7 metres long and nearly 4.5 metres in diameter, is the heart of a $5 billion investment in the space station program by 10 European countries. It is lined with refrigerator-sized racks to be used for wide-ranging space research.
Leland Melvin and Dan Tani used a robot arm to lift the gleaming 10-tonne cylinder from the cargo bay of space shuttle Atlantis and slip it on to a station berthing port in a moment put off for years by shuttle problems.
Columbus was supposed to have been delivered in 2002 but was postponed by delays launching the space station's service module and then the explosion of the shuttle Columbia in 2003 that led to a suspension of flights for 2-1/2 years. Even at the end, nothing came easy for Columbus.
NASA had to postpone installation for a day when German astronaut Hans Schlegel, scheduled to take part in an accompanying spacewalk, fell ill. Space rookie Stan Love filled in and, working with lead spacewalker Rex Walheim, prepared Columbus for its move from the shuttle. In their bulky spacesuits, they struggled to attach a clasp for the robot arm, falling more than hour behind schedule.
The European Space Agency has counted on the successful deployment of Columbus and the March 8 launch of a cargo ship to proceed with programs that will include involvement in NASA's plan to return humans to the moon. This will be the first time Europe will have a permanent base in space. The first participation will help in reinforcing our technical expertise and our experience of operations to be able to go further and participate with the future of space exploration.
Japan is still waiting for NASA to launch its space station contribution a three-part laboratory named Kibo. The U.S. space agency plans to begin installing the Japanese lab during its next shuttle mission in March. NASA has 11 more construction and resupply flights remaining before the $100 billion station is complete and the space shuttles are retired in 2010.
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Russia will launch Tuesday a Soyuz-U carrier rocket with a cargo spacecraft on board to deliver food, equipment and other supplies to the International Space Station (ISS), a Mission Control.
The Progress M-63 space freighter is scheduled for launch from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan at 1:03 p.m. GMT on February 5, the spokesman said. It is expected to deliver 2.5 metric tons of cargo to support the ISS operation. The automatic docking with the orbital station has been set for 2:38 p.m. GMT on February 7. The current 16th expedition on board the ISS comprises U.S. astronauts Peggy Whitson and Daniel Tani, and Russia's Yury Malenchenko.
The ISS crew will also see a new face, with flight engineer Daniel Tani being replaced by European Space Agency astronaut Leopold Eyharts. The flight has been repeatedly delayed since December 6 over problems with faulty fuel tank sensors and a radiator hose. The launch of the 24th shuttle mission to the ISS is still uncertain, however, due to weather concerns making yet another delay extremely likely.
Meanwhile, NASA said on Monday that the repeatedly-delayed Atlantis space shuttle launch had been set for February 7. During the upcoming mission, the crew members will carry out three spacewalks, installing and activating the $2 billion Columbus space laboratory, which has taken some 10 years to construct and is Europe's main contribution to the International Space Station (ISS).
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Mars life? Well, the strange images have emerged demonstrating to a mystery the feminine figure that walked under a hill in the barren planet. The photo of what to seem a naked woman with its arm outstretched was between several taken in the red planet and envoys again to the Earth by the alcohol from the explorer of Mars de NASÁs.
Although no official confirmation has come from the NASA if the figure is a foreigner or an optical illusion caused by a Mars landscape, has fixed abuzz of the Internet that really is Mars life. As an enthusiastic one put it in the Web site, these pictures are amazing. It could not believe my eyes when I saw what appears to be a naked foreigner that it works around in Mars.
The proper word for it is
pareidolia: the phenomenon where people tend to see human faces and other familiar forms in otherwise unfamiliar inanimate objects. We have all seen faces and creatures in the sky.The news of the woman of the Mars mystery came the right days after a team of French scientists demanded to have discovered the test that the red planet has dense clouds of high level of the dry ice, that scud through its orange sky.
Using the data collected by the spectrometer of Mars OMEGA on board, the equipment found the existence of the clouds of the ice that sometimes get to be so dense that they send absolutely dark shades in the dusty surface of the red planet. This one is the first time that the clouds of the ice of Mars carbon dioxide have been reflected and identified of above. This one is important because the images not only say to us on their form, but also its size and density.
Nevertheless according to the scientist Franck Montmessin of the lead of the d'Aeronomie of the service in the university of Versailles, it is very difficult to separate the signals that come from clouds, atmosphere and surface,....!!!
Je suis un étranger qui est juste arrivé de Mars - Ik ben een buitenlander die net van Maart is aangekomen - Ich bin ein Fremde, der soeben vom März angekommen ist. - Sono uno straniero che è appena arrivato di marzo. - Sou um estrangeiro que chegou exactamente de Março. - Soy un extranjero que llegó exactamente de Marzo.More intechclan...
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