This story was updated at 12:19 p.m. EDT.
The Thursday launch of a Russian
Soyuz spacecraft carrying the world's first repeat space tourist and a new crew
for the International Space Station has boosted the population of space to its
historical max: 13 people.
The
population boom ties the record for the maximum number of people in space
at the same time. It is relatively rare but could become more commonplace once
the space station shifts to a larger, six-person crew in late May.
"This is the highest that we've
seen," NASA spokesperson Nicole Cloutier-Lemasters
told SPACE.com Friday from the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Here's the baker's dozen breakdown
of the three spaceships in orbit today:
- Soyuz TMA-14: Three people aboard, including space
tourist Charles Simonyi and the new Expedition 19 crew for the station
which numbers two, a Russian and an American. Launched Thursday and will
arrive at the station Saturday morning.
- Space Shuttle Discovery: Seven people aboard, returning
from the space station after delivering the last
pair of U.S. solar wings to the orbiting laboratory, boosting it to
full power during their
STS-119 mission. The shuttle is due to land Saturday in Florida to end
a 13-day spaceflight.
- International Space Station: Currently home to three
astronauts, one each from the United States, Russia and Japan. Two will
return home April 7 with Simonyi to end their Expedition 18 mission.
The first time 13 people flew in
space was March 1995, when two Russians and an American launched on a Soyuz,
joining three cosmonauts aboard the Mir Space Station and seven astronauts on
space shuttle Endeavour, which was in orbit on a separate mission, according to
collectSPACE.com, a SPACE.com
partner.
Since then, similar cosmic
"traffic jams" have occurred several times, NASA officials said.
The last time the space population
surpassed 10 astronauts was in 2006 during NASA's STS-115 mission, when the
shuttle Atlantis was headed home. Three spaceflyers were aboard the station and
three more were en route to the outpost aboard a Soyuz.
But that traffic jam fell short of
the maximum. Atlantis carried a crew of six astronauts, with the orbital
population topping out at 12. Those three spacecraft shared a rare ship-to-ship
phone call before Atlantis landed.
The current party breaks up soon.
Discovery is due to land tomorrow on
a runway at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., at 1:38 p.m.
EDT (1738 GMT) to end a mission that delivered a new crewmember and final solar
arrays to the space station.
SPACE.com is providing continuous
coverage of Discovery's STS-119 mission with
reporter Clara Moskowitz and senior editor Tariq Malik in New York. Click here for mission updates
and SPACE.com's live NASA TV video feed.
advertisement
