Ike's A Coming!!

This week's NASA post is about The International Space Station(ISS).

(Top picture, courtesy of NASA ISS Web Site) A Russian cargo ship was supposed to dock with the ISS this last Friday to deliver supplies to the station crew. That didn't happen, as due to the evacuation of Huston, due to Hurricane Ike, NASA had to leave Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center. According to the ISS Web Site, most of the missions, now being run out of Austin, TX; and Huntsville, ALB. facilities, will consist of recovery for the next week. Even tough NASA can continue to operate the station from these fall back positions, certain systems can only be controlled from the Johnson Space Center facility, so U.S. & Russian officials agreed to post pone the docking till Mission Control may be re-opened. The rescheduled docking will take place on Wednesday, September 17th, even if Johnson Space Center is not back to full working order.

(Bottom Picture, courtesy of NASA ISS Web Site)Before the closing of Mission Control, and The Johnson Space Center, NASA had began a very unique game. Greg Chamitoff, Flight Engineer for the Expedition 17 crew on the ISS, began a game of Chess with the people at Mission Control. Charmitoff brought the Chess set with him aboard STS-124 (Discovery) which launched on May 31st, of this year. In addition to the folks at Mission Control, Charitoff is playing with people at control centers in Moscow, Japan, Germany, and France!! The first game was won by Chamitoff, and he had began another before Hurricane Ike started to effect the Space Control Center in Houston, TX. NASA is posting the moves, one per day, on the ISS web site. You can also leave a comment at the bottom of the screen to tell Mission Control how you would move against Chamitoff!!

Expedition 17 has been on the ISS for 159 days, and the ISS has been in orbit of the Earth for 3,586 days!!