ISS Crew Expands; Now’s the Time To Expand Your Knowledge of the Orbiting Outpost

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The crew of the International Space Station has now increased to six for the first time with the arrival of three new residents. Also, for the first time all the ISS partners are represented on board the station at once as astronauts from NASA, CSA, ESA, JAXA and Russia are all part of the crew. The Soyuz TMA-15 docked with the ISS at 12:34 UT, and the new crewmembers entered the station at 14:14 UT. “I sincerely appreciate the international partners’ continuous efforts to enable the 6-person crew on-board after having overcome so many challenge,” said Dr. Keiji Tachikawa, president of JAXA. I believe that an increased number of ISS crewmembers will make use of the ISS … capabilities to the utmost extent …and this contributes to the safe and steady operation of the ISS.”

Now that the science and all sorts of other activity will be ramping up on the space station, it’s a good time to get to know your ISS a little better. Here’s a few links that will help:

Very cool interactive ISS site, with talking astronauts! Take a 360 degree tour of the station and find out what it is like to live on board.

An interactive feature about the International cooperation.

Find out more about the science on board the ISS.

This very cool feature allows you to see images of Earth — as seen from space — from the current location of the space station. Note: not live pictures, but images taken earlier and when you visit the website, the telemetry is calculated to give you a picture from the station’s approximate location.

Find out when you can see the station flying over your backyard:
Heaven’s Above
NASA’s Real Data site
ESA’s “ISS – Where is it Now” site

Follow the latest ISS news from NASA.

ESA’s ISS site.

Canada’s ISS site.

If you are into video games: Space Station Sim