September 25, 2017 - Crew Swap
Crew Swap STS-86, the seventh Mir docking mission, was launched twenty years ago this week. Atlantis and its crew of seven spent six days docked to Mir, during which they transferred over four tons of material to Mir, including food and water. On the sixth day of the mission, astronaut Scott Parazynski and cosmonaut Vladimir Titov conducted a five-hour spacewalk, the first joint U.S.-Russian extravehicular activity during a shuttle mission. Atlantis left astronaut David Wolf behind to spend a four-month stint on Mir. He took over for Michael Foale, who hitched a ride home on Atlantis after having spent nearly six months on Mir. In this image taken from Atlantis, a solar array on Mir’s Spektr module shows damage sustained from a collision with a Progress resupply ship earlier in the year.
Image credit: NASA
Weekly Calendar
September 25 - October 1, 2017
Holidays - Sky Events - Space History
Monday 25
Pallas appears stationary
1973: 59-day Skylab 3 mission ends
1992: Mars Observer launched
1997: STS-86 Atlantis launched
2008: Shenzhou 7 launched
2013: Soyuz TMA-10M launched carrying ISS Expedition 37/38 crew
2014: Soyuz TMA-14M launched carrying ISS Expedition 41/42 crew
Tuesday 26
Saturn 3° south of Moon
Wednesday 27
Moon at apogee
Vesta in conjunction with Sun
First Qtr Moon 10:54 PM ET
1814: Daniel Kirkwood born
2007: Dawn spacecraft launched
Thursday 28
Pluto appears stationary
Friday 29
Yom Kippur begins at sunset
1977: Salyut 6 space station launched
1988: STS-26 Discovery launched, first shuttle flight since Challenger disaster
2001: First satellite launch from Alaska
2009: MESSENGER makes its third and final flyby of Mercury
Saturday 30
1880: Henry Draper takes first photograph of Orion Nebula
1994: STS-68 Endeavour launched
1995: Daily communication with Pioneer 11 ends
2005: Soyuz TMA-7 launched carrying ISS Expedition 12 crew
2009: Soyuz TMA-16 launched carrying ISS Expedition 21/22 crew
2016: Rosetta mission ends with controlled descent to surface of Comet 67P
Sunday 1
1897: 40-inch refractor dedicated at Yerkes Observatory
1958: NASA founded
1962: 300-foot radio telescope at Green Bank goes into operation
2010: Chang’e-2 lunar spacecraft launched