* Astronomy

The original cargo module Zarya ("Sunrise") of the International Space Station will make its 50,000th orbit of the Earth  at 15:17 GMT, today.
The Russian Zarya module and will have travelled 2.3 billion km since its launch on  20th November, 1998 .
The module is  primarily used today for storage and propulsion.

The Zarya Module, also known by the technical term Functional Cargo Block and the Russian acronym FGB, was the first component launched for the International Space Station. This module was designed to provide the station's initial propulsion and power. The 19,323-kilogram pressurised module was launched on a Russian Proton rocket in November 1998.
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 Astronaut Rick Mastracchio and Dave Williams  have finished the first STS-118 spacewalk on Saturday.
 During the 6-hour and 17-minute excursion, the two spacewalkers successfully installed a new truss segment to the International Space Station
The two astronauts  re- entered the Quest Airlock  at 22:45 GMT (6:45 p.m. EDT).

On 23rd July 2007, two International Space Station crew members successfully completed a 7-hour, 41-minute spacewalk that saw the removal and jettison of a refrigerator-size ammonia reservoir.
Astronaut Clay Anderson was the lead spacewalker, EV1, wearing the spacesuit with red stripes. Fyodor Yurchikhin, the cosmonaut and station commander, wearing the all-white suit, was EV2. Cosmonaut Oleg Kotov operated the Canadarm2 from the U.S. laboratory Destiny.
After leaving the Quest airlock and setting up equipment, the first task was installation of a television camera stanchion. The spacewalkers took it from an external stowage platform and installed it on the Earth-facing side of the station's main truss at the interface Starboard 0-Port 1 (S0-P1) truss segments.
Next they moved to separate tasks. Anderson reconfigured a power supply for an S-Band Antenna Assembly, and then set up and got on a foot restraint at the end of Canadarm2. Yurchikhin replaced a circuit breaker, called a remote power controller module. It ensures power redundancy for a move of the Mobile Transporter rail car on the station's truss.
Back together, Anderson and Yurchikhin removed flight support equipment, where the camera stanchion had been mounted, and an attached Flight Releasable Attachment Mechanism. Together they have a mass of about 212 pounds.
While Anderson jettisoned them from the end of the arm, Yurchikhin moved to the Z1 truss, where he disconnected and stowed cabling associated with the ammonia reservoir, called the Early Ammonia Servicer (EAS).
The EAS was installed on the P6 truss during STS-105 in August 2001, as an ammonia replenishment reservoir if a leak had occurred. It was never used, and was no longer needed after the permanent cooling system was activated last December.
The EAS has to be removed before the P6 truss can be moved to the end of the station's main truss.
With Anderson still on the arm, both crew members moved to the P6 Truss and released its remaining connections to the station. Once it was free, Anderson held the EAS while the arm manoeuvred him to the jettison point, below the right side of the ISS main truss.

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=gtOkZEc8IHU]

The EAS weighs a little over 1,400 pounds on Earth. The jettison was much like that of the stanchion equipment. Anderson shoved the EAS opposite the station's direction of travel.
A subsequent reboost by Russian thrusters changes the station's orbit to provide clearance from the EAS. The reboost also prepares for the 2nd August launch of the Progress 26 cargo carrier and the 7th August launch of Discovery to the station.
The final scheduled spacewalk task was cleaning the Earth-facing docking port, or Common Berthing Mechanism (CBM) of the Unity node. That was done to prepare for the relocation of Pressurized Mating Adapter-3 (PMA-3), scheduled for late August.
The move is being made to clear the PMA-3's present position, on the starboard CBM of Unity, for a series of events that will culminate with the arrival of the Harmony node and its preparation to receive future space shuttles.
Crew members completed three get-ahead tasks. They removed an auxiliary equipment bag from the P6 Truss and attached it to the Z1 Truss. They also removed a malfunctioning Global Positioning System antenna on the S0 Truss and released bolts on two fluid trays attached to the S0. The trays are to be installed on Node 2, the Harmony node, during STS-120 this fall.
After cleanup Anderson and Yurchikhin re-entered Quest and concluded the spacewalk. It was the first spacewalk for Anderson and the third for Yurchikhin.

Russian Mission Control said Tuesday it successfully adjusted the International Space Station's orbit in preparation for the docking of the NASA STS-118 mission.
The launch of the U.S. space shuttle Endeavour  is targeted for the 8th August.
 It will be the 22nd flight to the International Space Station (ISS) and the first flight for Endeavour since 2002.