ISS Crew Expands; Now's the Time To Expand Your Knowledge of the Orbiting Outpost

By Nancy Atkinson - May 29, 2009 at 10:14 AM UTC | Space Exploration
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[/caption] The crew of the International Space Station has now increased to six for the first time with the arrival of three new residents. Also, for the first time all the ISS partners are represented on board the station at once as astronauts from NASA, CSA, ESA, JAXA and Russia are all part of the crew. The Soyuz TMA-15 docked with the ISS at 12:34 UT, and the new crewmembers entered the station at 14:14 UT. "I sincerely appreciate the international partners' continuous efforts to enable the 6-person crew on-board after having overcome so many challenge," said Dr. Keiji Tachikawa, president of JAXA. I believe that an increased number of ISS crewmembers will make use of the ISS ... capabilities to the utmost extent ...and this contributes to the safe and steady operation of the ISS."

Now that the science and all sorts of other activity will be ramping up on the space station, it's a good time to get to know your ISS a little better. Here's a few links that will help:

Very cool interactive ISS site,

with talking astronauts! Take a 360 degree tour of the station and find out what it is like to live on board.

An interactive feature about the International cooperation.

Find out more about the science on board the ISS.

This very cool feature allows you to see images of Earth

-- as seen from space -- from the current location of the space station. Note: not live pictures, but images taken earlier and when you visit the website, the telemetry is calculated to give you a picture from the station's approximate location.

Find out when you can see the station flying over your backyard:

Heaven's Above

NASA's Real Data site

ESA's "ISS - Where is it Now" site

Follow the latest ISS news from NASA.

ESA's ISS site.

Canada's ISS site.

If you are into video games:

Space Station Sim

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com