Daily Archives: March 17, 2013

Space Station #39;s first Canadian Commander Chris Hadfield is a social media superstar
Space Station #39;s first Canadian Commander Chris Hadfield is a social media superstar. Uploaded by jewishnewsone on Mar 14 2013. Veteran astronaut Colonel Chris Hadfield has made history by becoming the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station A brief ceremony was held aboard the ISS when Hadfield took over the reins of the USD 150 billion space habitat from outgoing US Commander Kevin Ford. Jewish News One.

By: JewishNewsOne

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Space Station's first Canadian Commander Chris Hadfield is a social media superstar - Video

MOSCOW (AP) A Soyuz space capsule carrying an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts landed Saturday morning on the foggy steppes of Kazakhstan, safely returning the three men to Earth after a 144-day mission to the International Space Station.

NASA's Kevin Ford and Russians Oleg Novitsky and Yevgeny Tarelkin had been scheduled to return on Friday, but the landing was postponed by a day because of bad weather.

Live footage on NASA TV showed all three men smiling as they were helped out of the capsule and into reclining chairs to begin their acclimatization to Earth's gravity after nearly five months in space.

A NASA TV commentator said only two of 12 search and rescue helicopters were allowed to land at the touchdown site because of heavy clouds and fog. So instead of being placed in an inflatable medical tent for checks, the astronauts were taken fairly quickly to one of the helicopters. The temperature at the time was well below freezing.

The crew was then flown to Kostanai, the staging site in Kazakhstan, where they posed for more photographs. Ford put on a traditional felt Kazakh hat and draped a matching coat over his flight suit, while holding up a matryoshka nesting doll of himself all souvenirs of the mission that began and ended in the Central Asian country.

The three men blasted off on Oct. 23 from the Baikonur cosmodrome, which Russia leases from Kazakhstan.

Vladimir Popovkin, the head of the Russian space agency, described the crew as "giving off good vibes, that they are a united and friendly team," the Interfax news agency reported.

Space officials said Ford would be flown to Houston, Texas, while the Russians would return to the space training facility outside Moscow.

Their return voyage to Earth began with the Russian-made capsule undocking from the space station at 5:43 a.m. local time (1143gmt Friday) and beginning its slow drift away. The craft made a "flawless entry" back into the Earth's atmosphere, descended through heavy cloud cover and landed perfectly in an upright position at around 9:10 a.m. (0310gmt), the NASA commentator said.

Three other astronauts from Russia, the U.S. and Canada remain at the space station. The next three-man crew two Russians and an American is scheduled to launch from the Baikonur cosmodrome on March 29.

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3 astronauts return to Earth from space station

HOUSTON, March 16, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --Three members of the Expedition 34 crew undocked from the International Space Station and returned safely to Earth on Friday, wrapping up a mission lasting more than four and a half months. Expedition 35 now is under way.

(Logo:http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO)

Station Commander Kevin Ford of NASA and Soyuz Commander Evgeny Tarelkin and Flight Engineer Oleg Novitskiy of the Russian Federal Space Agency undocked their Soyuz TMA-06M spacecraft from the space station at 6:43 p.m. CDT and landed northeast of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, at about 10:10 p.m. (9:10 a.m., March 16, Kazakh time). The trio arrived at the station Oct. 25, 2012, and spent 144 days in space, 142 of which were aboard the orbiting laboratory.

Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield is in command of Expedition 35. He is the first Canadian to serve as station commander. Hadfield and his crewmates, Tom Marshburn of NASA and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko will work aboard the station until three additional crew members, including NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, arrive in late March.

Ford, Tarelkin, and Novitskiy orbited Earth 2,304 times and traveled almost 61 million miles.

To follow Twitter updates from NASA's Expedition 35 astronauts, visit:

Tweets by astromarshburn

and

Tweets by Cmdr_Hadfield

For more information about the International Space Station and its crew, visit:

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Space Station Astronauts Land Safely In Kazakhstan

A Soyuz space capsule carrying an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts has landed on the foggy steppes of Kazakhstan, safely returning the three men to Earth after a 144-day mission to the International Space Station.

Nasa's Kevin Ford and Russians Oleg Novitsky and Yevgeny Tarelkin had been scheduled to return yesterday, but the landing was postponed by a day because of bad weather.

Live footage on Nasa TV showed all three men smiling as they were helped out of the capsule and into reclining chairs to begin their acclimatisation to Earth's gravity after nearly five months in space.

A Nasa TV commentator said only two of 12 search and rescue helicopters were allowed to land at the touchdown site because of heavy clouds and fog. So instead of being placed in an inflatable medical tent for checks, the astronauts were taken fairly quickly to one of the helicopters. The temperature at the time was well below freezing.

The crew was then flown to Kostanai, the staging site in Kazakhstan, where they posed for more photographs.

Mr Ford put on a traditional felt Kazakh hat and draped a matching coat over his flight suit, while holding up a matryoshka nesting doll of himself - all souvenirs of the mission that began and ended in the Central Asian country.

The three men blasted off on October 23 from the Baikonur cosmodrome, which Russia leases from Kazakhstan.

Vladimir Popovkin, the head of the Russian space agency, described the crew as "giving off good vibes, that they are a united and friendly team", the Interfax news agency reported.

Space officials said Mr Ford would be flown to Houston, Texas, while the Russians would return to the space training facility outside Moscow.

Their return voyage to Earth began with the Russian-made capsule undocking from the space station and beginning its slow drift away. The craft made a "flawless entry" back into the Earth's atmosphere, descended through heavy cloud cover and landed perfectly in an upright position.

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Space station trio return to Earth