Astronauts supplied the International Space Station with a new logistics module; tested tools, technologies, and techniques to refuel satellites in space; and collected old equipment.
To mark the 30th anniversary of the Apollo 17 mission and the famous
“Blue Marble” full Earth image, Goddard Space Flight Center’s
Visualization and Analysis Lab has rendered a new visualization inspired
by the mission.
With much of their time committed to construction of the International Space Station, astronauts and cosmonauts are also beginning their first scientific studies. The Destiny Laboratory just joined to the International Space Station includes the best optical quality window ever flown on a human-occupied spacecraft. The window will eventually host a number of remote sensing experiments that will use a special rack system, the Window Observational Research Facility or WORF, for mechanical and electrical support (Eppler et al. 1996). Until the WORF is complete in June 2002, astronauts are photographing the Earth’s surface as part of an early project, Crew Earth Observations.
Astronauts on flight STS-1 captured this view of the Tigris and Euphrates through a viewport on the space shuttle during its first flight in April 1981.