* Astronomy

An old U.S. satellite, Hitch Hiker, launched in 1963, has flown past the International Space Station (ISS).
Russian and American monitoring systems had been monitoring the situation during the satellite flyby.

"Our calculations have been correct - the object flew past the station" - Nikolai Ivanov, ballistics expert with Russia's mission control centre.

The ISS crew had not been instructed to take pictures of Hitch Hiker as it was moving at a very high speed.

"The speed was more than 14 km per second, and it was impossible to record it" - Nikolai Ivanov.

The U.S. Space Catalogue contained more than 10,000 various objects of different size, including the ISS.

"Only 10% of these objects, each of which has a number, are operable spacecraft, and the rest are just 'space garbage'" - Nikolai Ivanov.

If the mission control calculations had been incorrect, the satellite could have pierced the ISS.

"The ISS had a special procedure, developed in advance, for emergency manoeuvres to swerve away from 'space garbage'. The ISS has used six such manoeuvres in its history - four with the help of Progress spacecraft and two using shuttles"

Source Novosti

The two-man crew of the International Space Station completed an over six-hour EVA Thursday evening outside the station, performing repairs and replacing experiments. Jeff Williams and Pavel Vinogradov started the spacewalk at 6:48 pm EDT (2248 GMT) Thursday, spending six hours and 31 minutes outside the ISS.
The two completed their primary tasks, including replacing an external ventilation valve used by the station's Elektron oxygen generator, repositioning a cable, and retrieving experiment packages mounted on the station's exterior. Because the two were running behind schedule, controllers considered dropping the last task on their schedule, the replacement of a camera on the US segment of the station, but instead extended the six-hour EVA by a half-hour, allowing the two to complete that task. The only significant glitch encountered during the EVA was a foothold on a telescoping boom that came loose and floated away, despite being locked in place.

An unmanned Russian cargo ship arrived Wednesday at the international space station, bearing supplies and Easter gifts from the families of the American and Russian crewmen, Associated Press news agency reported Tuesday.

(old news)
The Progress M-56 ship, which was launched from the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan two days ago, hooked up with the orbiting station on schedule, Russian Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin said.
In addition to some 2.5 tons of food, water, books, DVDs and scientific equipment, the ship is also bringing Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov and U.S. astronaut Jeffrey Williams parcels from their families.

Vinogradov and Williams on April 1 began a six-month mission aboard the space station.
Russia’s Progress cargo ships and Soyuz space capsules have been the station’s lifeline since the U.S. space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003. The NASA shuttle program was suspended for more than two years; the shuttle Discovery flew to the station in July, but problems with its insulation raised doubts about when the next shuttle would go into space.

Source

The Progress M-56 successfully docked to the aft port of the Zvezda service module of the ISS on April 26, 2006, at 21:41:31 Moscow Time.

-- Edited by Blobrana at 21:29, 2006-05-23

After departing the ISS, the crew of Discovery captured this image of the orbiting The International Space Station (ISS) above the Caspian Sea. The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest human-made object ever to orbit the Earth. Last August, the station was visited and resupplied by space shuttle Discovery. The ISS is currently operated by the Expedition 13 crew, consisting a Russian and an American astronaut.


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Credit: STS-114 Crew, NASA