International Space Station Astronaut Leroy Chiao, like the rest of NASA, tracks key milestones for the Space Shuttle Return-to-Flight operations. A lucky overpass of the Space Station over Florida on April 6, 2005, allowed Leroy and his crew mate Salizhan Sharipov a unique view of the rollout of the Space Shuttle Discovery. At the time of his observations, Discovery was approximately midway between the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and launch pad 39-B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
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.
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.
While docked to the Space Station the international crew of Space Shuttle Mission STS-112 paused as the spacecraft sped over the Caucasus Range. They had planned before launch that a crewmember would look out the windows of the spacecraft for remnants of the disastrous collapse of Kolka Glacier. The close collaboration between the USA and Russia on all aspects of Space Station construction, and the presence on the Shuttle crew of Russian mission specialist Fyodor Yurchikhin, made the crew particularly interested in photographing the area to help scientists on the ground in their studies of the collapse. There is a dramatic difference between this digital photograph taken by the Shuttle crew and one taken just a week before the collapse by the International Space Station crew.