SUBMITTED BY ARTHUR N1ORC - AMSAT A/C #31468
*First Live HDTV Broadcast From Space*
The first live HDTV broadcast from space took place Wednesday. It featured Expedition 14 Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and Flight Engineer Thomas Reiter, serving as camera operator. The broadcast was carried by Discovery HD Theater and NHK and was also shown at Discovery Channel stores. Known as the Space Video Gateway, the system transmits high bandwidth digital television signals to the ground that are not only spectacular, but also valuable to scientists, engineers and managers.
More testing of one of the station's four control moment gyros (CMG-3) took place Wednesday. Engineers repeated some of the CMG-3 testing that was performed earlier. The results will be compared to a previous test and provide additional data on the state of the accelerometer, lubricant and lubrication of the spin bearings. CMG-3 is scheduled to be removed and replaced on shuttle mission STS-118 next summer. The suspect CMG will be stowed on an external stowage platform on the station and will be returned to Earth on the STS-122 mission next fall.
The Expedition 14 crew continues spacewalk preparations. The Nov. 22 spacewalk includes a commercial golf experiment performed by Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin. This experiment is dedicated to the 200th anniversary of establishing diplomatic ties between Russia and the United States and to commemorate the golf shot of Alan Shepard Jr. on the moon.
+ Read more about Expedition 14 http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition14/index.html + View crew's daily timelines http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/timelines/index.html
NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency have named two astronauts and two cosmonauts to the next International Space Station crew, known as Expedition 15. Astronauts Clayton Anderson and Daniel Tani will travel to the station next year and work as flight engineers. Cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Dr. Oleg Kotov will spend six months aboard the orbiting laboratory.
+ Read more about Expedition 15 http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition15/index.html + Read the press release http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/oct/HQ_06337_new_station_crew.html