The seven-member crew of the space shuttle Endeavour docked with the six-person crewed international space station this afternoon, creating the largest space city in humanities' history.
Docking occurred eight minutes early today at 1:47:11 pm EDT, as the two spacecraft flew 218 miles high over the waters north of the Australian coastline.
Minutes following docking, Endeavour's commander Mark Polansky text messaged SpaceLaunchNews.com, "Docked successfully with ISS a few minutes ago. It will take awhile before we can open the hatches, but it’s great to be here".
After the hatches are opened at around 3:50 pm, it will be a very crowded city in space as for the first time in earth's history, 13 humans will share a single spacecraft as they live and work in space. This is our destiny. This is our future happening before our eyes.
Today's docking occurred forty years to the day of America's Apollo 11 flight to the first moon landing; and 34 years to the day of the first American & Russian link-up in space, when Apollo 18 docked with the Soyuz module in earth orbit.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment