* Astronomy

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RE: ISS spacewalk

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RE: ISS

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Atlantis docked with the international space station Sunday, as engineers continued to review photographs of a section of peeled-back thermal blanket on the space shuttle.

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Atlantis commander Rick Sturckow eased the shuttle into the space station's docking port. Latches fastened the shuttle and orbiting space lab together at 3:36 p.m. EDT. The shuttle's two-day chase of the space station ended about 210 miles above southeastern Australia.

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STS-117 docking with the ISS

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Credit: NASA

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Cosmonauts complete 83rd walk at station
The International Space Station has become better armoured against cataclysmic destruction from a micrometeorite that could pierce the vessel like a bullet.

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A mini-meteorite has left a bullet-sized hole in a module of the International Space Station (ISS), but the three-person US-Russian team of astronauts inside are not in danger.
The puncture, in an outer pumping component on the module, was detected in the Russia "Zaria" module of the station during a spacewalk by the two Russian cosmonauts on board, the spokesman for the Russian space agency, Vladimir Solovyev, said.
It was the first time a meteorite hole had been found on a module of the ISS. Several holes have been observed on the big solar panels that spread out from the orbiter.

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Two cosmonauts at the International Space Station will begin a spacewalk from the Pirs docking compartment airlock at about 10:30 a.m. EDT Wednesday. They will install a section of Ethernet cable on the Zarya module, and install additional Service Module Debris Protection (SMDP) panels on the Zvezda. The cosmonauts will also deploy a Russian scientific experiment. The spacewalk should last about five hours.

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Two International Space Station cosmonauts successfully completed a 5-hour, 25-minute spacewalk from the Pirs docking compartment airlock Wednesday, installing Service Module Debris Protection (SMDP) panels and rerouting a Global Positioning System antenna cable.
Additional SMDP panels will be installed on Zvezda during a second spacewalk by the cosmonauts, Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov, on June 6. During that spacewalk they also will install a section of an Ethernet cable on the Zarya module and a Russian experiment called Biorisk on Pirs.
Yurchikhin, the lead spacewalker, EV1, and Kotov, EV2, wore Russian Orlan spacesuits. It was the first spacewalk for both.

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=fDQqS_VyEqk]

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RE: International Space Station

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Two Russian cosmonauts climbed out of the international space station Wednesday to install protective panels designed to shield the orbiting outpost from dangerous space debris.
Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and flight engineer Oleg Kotov opened a hatch on the Russian side of the space station at 3:05 p.m. EDT. The spacewalk was scheduled to last six hours.
Both men were tethered to keep them from floating away. The station's third occupant, U.S. astronaut Sunita Williams, remained inside.
Space debris includes objects such as discarded rocket parts, planetary dust and rocks. Scientists consider it the greatest threat to the space station orbiting about 220 miles above Earth.

Source AP