NASA plans to return the
International Space Station crew to its original size of three on the second
post-Columbia shuttle mission.
NASA and its international
partners have named the station's 12th crew.
American astronaut Bill
McArthur and Russia's Valery Tokarev will fly to the station on a Soyuz rocket
in the fall. McArthur, who lived on the station once before, will be the
station's commander.
Thomas Reiter, a European
Space Agency astronaut, will be part of their crew too. He will arrive aboard
the shuttle Atlantis on the second shuttle mission since the 2003 disaster.
That mission is scheduled
for September, so Reiter's six-month stay could overlap the changeover from one
crew to the next.
NASA said Reiter's
assignment is part of a deal between the Russians and Europeans.
The station's crew was cut
from three members to two after the shuttle disaster, because the absence of
the shuttles severely limited supplies, including food, water and breathing air.
Reiter's crewmates on the
second shuttle mission include commander Steve Lindsey, pilot Mark Kelly and
mission specialists Piers Sellers, Mike Fossum, Lisa Nowak and Stephanie
Wilson.
Reiter will return to Earth
on a later shuttle or Soyuz flight.
Launch delayed again
A Kennedy Space Center launch team will wait until at least Thursday to get a new weather satellite off
the ground from California.
NASA rescheduled the launch
for Thursday after a connector hose came loose during the countdown to
Saturday's liftoff of a Boeing Delta 2 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in
California.
The launch window for the
NOAA-N weather satellite opens at 6:22 a.m. Eastern time and extends for 10
minutes. The satellite will be used for forecasting and climate research
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