Human in Space –Preparations Continue for Next Week’s Spacewalk- Since 1961 more than 400 human beings have ventured into space.
 Image above: The Niagara River, eastern end of Lake Erie and western end of Lake Ontario are featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 15 crew member on the International Space Station. Image credit: NASA.
In the Pirs Docking Compartment, Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov continued preparations for the upcoming spacewalk on May 30. Activities included charging an Orlan battery, installing hardware on the spacesuits, preparing auxiliary equipment for the suits, setting up additional portable air repress bottles and separating liquid and gas in the cooling systems.
Using the airlock requires it to be isolated from the ISS Progress 24 cargo ship docked to it. To this end, Yurchikhin and Kotov installed the docking mechanism, closed the hatches and performed leak checks.
Wednesday’s station reboost by the ISS Progress 25 thrusters was successful. The purpose of the maneuver was to position the station for the STS-117 launch in June.
+ Expedition 15 Spacewalk Briefing Materials, May 23, 2007
+ Read more about the Progress 25 docking
+ Read more about Expedition 15
+ View crew daily timelines
Why Explore Space?Completing the International Space Station, explains NASA Administrator Mike Griffin, is an integral part of the Vision for Space Exploration.”Today,” Griffin writes, “NASA is moving forward with a new focus for the manned space program: to go out beyond Earth orbit for purposes of human exploration and scientific discovery.
And the International Space Station is now a stepping stone on the way, rather than being the end of the line.”+ Read More
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