Atlantis Returns From ISS

SPACE TRAVEL

File Photo of a shuttle night landing in infrared - NASA KSC image

Washington (AFP) Sept. 20, 2000
The US space shuttle Atlantis landed early Wednesday at the Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral, Florida, ending a successful mission to refurbish the International Space Station.

The five astronauts and two cosmonauts landed safely after their 12-day mission, highlighted by a six-hour space walk to install cables and a global positioning system to help the space station position itself with respect to the North Pole.

Atlantis landed at 3:56 a.m. (0756 GMT) under starry skies, after having completed its mission, "opening the doors to a new home in the International Space Station," one NASA official said.

As part of their mission crew members moved more than two tonnes of material and supplies into the station to prepare it for full-time inhabitants.

The 264 cubic-meter (9,323 cubic foot) space station is comprised of three "rooms": the Unity, a US-made module primarily used as a docking cavern for shuttles; the Zaria which will serve as a storage closet; and the Russian Progress vessel which will be the primary living space for US national William Shepherd and Russian nationals Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikaliev when they arrive in November.

The fourth piece of the station will serve as a space laboratory for the 21st century when it arrives via space shuttle in October.

SPACE TRAVEL

Shuttle Continues To Waste External Tanks: SFF

Los Angeles - Sept. 8, 2000
As the Space Shuttle lifts off to on a mission to activate the long-awaited International Space Station (ISS), the Space Frontier Foundation today calls for a re-examination of the idea of making space stations out of the External Tanks that are thrown away during Shuttle missions.

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