Former Melbourne High science teacher Joe Acaba is among a new group of astronauts assigned to live on the International Space Station, NASA announced today. Acaba, who taught at the school in 1999-2000 and visited the station last year during his first spaceflight, is scheduled to launch on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft in April 2012. He'll fly with veteran Russian cosmonaut and space station commander Gennady Padalka and cosmonaut Konstantin Valkov.
The trio will stay on board the orbiting outpost for about six months, until September 2012.
Other NASA astronauts assigned to expeditions in 2012 and 2013 were Sunita Williams, a veteran of the station's Expedition 15 crew, and Kevin Ford, who piloted Discovery last August. Click here to read the full NASA press release.
Acaba was one of three "educator astronauts" NASA selected in its 2004 class, along with Ricky Arnold and Dottie Metcalf-Lindeburger.
The flights fall during a long-planned period in which NASA will rely on Russia for human access to space, after the shuttle's planned retirement next year. NASA currently has contracts for Soyuz rides to the station through 2013 and landings in 2014.
New rockets and spacecraft will be in development, either by the government or by private companies, depending on congressional action in the coming months.
IMAGE: (23 March 2009) --- Astronaut Joseph Acaba, STS-119 mission specialist, participated in the mission's third scheduled spacewalk outside the International Space Station on March 23, 2009, a six-hour, 27-minute excursion. Credit: NASA.
3 comments:
Way to go Mel High
Best of luck up there Joe ,Too bad we won't be able to get you there or back by 2012 since we are giving up manned spaceflight for years .
Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow /Hey thanks man!! you are so good. I think this the perfect work.
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