Trending

Astronauts Celebrate Labor Day 2019 in Space

By

NASA astronaut Christina Koch relaxes by a window on the International Space Station to mark the U.S. Labor Day holiday on Sept. 2, 2019.
NASA astronaut Christina Koch relaxes by a window on the International Space Station to mark the U.S. Labor Day holiday on Sept. 2, 2019. (Image credit: Christina Koch/NASA <a href=https://twitter.com/Astro_Christina/status/1168633443061776386>via Twitter</a>)

American astronauts on the International Space Station are starting this week with a day off today (Sept. 2) to mark the U.S. Labor Day holiday on Earth. 

NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Christina Koch and Andrew Morgan have some extra time to call friends and loved ones, or simply relax and look down on Earth through the window. They just might spend time observing the massive Hurricane Dorian from space, like one of their fellow crewmates. 

"Even astronauts need to chill," Koch wrote on Twitter today. "Spending this Labor Day weekend reading and relaxing by my favorite window. After a long week packed with science, a spacewalk, and a re-docking, it’' important to recharge your batteries to keep focused on bringing your best."

Related: Expedition 60: The Space Station Mission in Photos

See more
See more

Hague, Koch and Morgan make up half of the space station's current six-person Expedition 60 crew. Rounding out the team are Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin (the station's commander), cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano. It is Parmitano who has been capturing daily photos of Hurricane Dorian from the space station. 

Hague, Koch and Ovchinin launched to the station in March of this year. While Hague and Ovchinin will return to Earth in October Koch is just over halfway through a nearly one-year mission to the space station, the first of its kind for a female astronaut. She'll return to Earth in February 2020, NASA officials have said. 

"Happy Labor Day from our astronauts celebrating 250 miles above us in the International Space Station, where they perform important scientific experiments that help improve life on Earth and page the way for our Artemis missions to the Moon and beyond," NASA wrote in a Twitter message today. NASA's Artemis program aims to return astronauts to the moon by 2024. 

Morgan, Skvortsov and Parmitano launched to the station on July 20. They'll return to Earth in December of this year. 

Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.  

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.

Tariq Malik
Tariq Malik

SPACE.COM EDITOR IN CHIEF — Tariq joined the Space.com team in 2001 as a staff writer, and later editor, covering human spaceflight, exploration and space science. He became Space.com's Managing Editor in 2009. Before joining Space.com, Tariq was a staff reporter for The Los Angeles Times. He is also an Eagle Scout (yes, he has the Space Exploration merit badge) and went to Space Camp four times as a kid and a fifth time as an adult. He has journalism degrees from the University of Southern California and New York University. To see his latest project, you can follow Tariq on Google+, Twitter and on Facebook.