|
30 Nov 2007 - Space Walk How the eye of a Hurricane looks from space!
 Some pretty spectacular photographs have just surfaced taken taken during the Space Shuttle Endeavour's STS-118 mission back in August this year. The high res images are pretty amazing and CLOUD news has pleasure in sharing them with you. If you look closely at the photos, you will see a 'Space eye view' of New Zealand, pretty amazing indeed. Another image shows a close up 'Space eye view' of Hurricane Dean's eye which battered the Caribbean in August this year. CLOUD news covered the Dean story on August 21st.
Check out the amazing photos of the Space Shuttle Endeavour's STS-118 mission Some background information on the mission:- This was the 22nd shuttle flight to the International Space Station and which lasted 12 days, 17 hours, 55 minutes and 34 seconds. It involved part construction, part repair and part rubbish removal. The construction part of the mission was to put in place another piece of the International Space Station (a third starboard truss segment). This piece is the socket bracket for a new gigantic solar panel array which Endeavour will bring up in 2008. The ISS currently has only two, but each is as long and wide as a football pitch. The repair part of this mission was to fix a gyroscope on the ISS. Gyroscopes are like spinning tops, able to stay balanced on their points because they are spinning so fast. On the ISS, a family of these gyroscopes help the station keep itself orientatedl. Endeavour’s astronauts replaced the faulty one with a new one. And the rubbish removal part of the mission is to haul back to Earth over 2000 kg of dirty clothing, toilet and kitchen waste and the odd bits of machinery that are no longer in use. U.S. Navy Commander Scott J. Kelly commanded the seven-person crew of STS-118. U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Charles O. Hobaugh was Endeavour's pilot. Veteran astronauts Richard A. Mastracchio and Dr. Dafydd (Dave) Williams of the Canadian Space Agency returned to space for their second missions. Barbara R. Morgan, Tracy E. Caldwell, Ph. D., and Benjamin Alvin Drew rounded out the crew as mission specialists. Data:-
Mission: International Space Station Flight 13A.1
Primary Payload: S5 Truss
Space Shuttle: Endeavour
Launch Pad: 39A
Launched: Aug. 8, 2007 - 6:36 p.m. EDT
Landed: Aug. 21, 2007 - 12:32 p.m. EDT
Mission Duration: 12 days, 17 hours, 55 minutes and 34 seconds
Inclination/Altitude: 51.6 degrees/122 nautical miles Last update : 30-11-2007 11:10
|
(0 vote)