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Soyuz TMA-8 spacecraft undocks from station BY WILLIAM HARWOOD STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION Posted: September 28, 2006 The Soyuz TMA-8 spacecraft, carrying outgoing Expedition 13 commander Pavel Vinogradov, flight engineer Jeff Williams and space tourist Anousheh Ansari, undocked from the international space station today at 5:53 p.m. Landing in Kazakhstan is expected around 9:14 p.m. EDT. Vinogradov and Williams were launched to the space station last March, becoming the lab's 13th full-time crew. They were joined in July by European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter, who was ferried to the outpost aboard the shuttle Discovery. Ansari blasted off Sept. 18 aboard the Soyuz TMA-9 spacecraft, along with Expedition 14 commander Mike Lopez-Alegria and cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin. Lopez-Alegria and Tyurin will remain aboard the station until next March while Reiter, who will be replaced by astronaut Sunita Williams, will return to Earth aboard Discovery in December. "Well friends, we have completed our work," Vinogradov radioed Russian flight controllers before entering the Soyuz TMA-8 capsule for the trip home. "We have completed packing, we have handed over the operations to the next crew. Thank you very much to everyone who has been working with us. Of course, it's a little bit sad leaving this house, this home." With all six astronauts and cosmonauts floating in the station's Unity module, Williams said "our work here is done. We leave it in good hands with Expedition 14. Just an immense 'thank you' to all on the ground who made the last six months so successful and so rewarding. We will see you soon on the ground." Ansari is the fourth so-called space tourist to pay some $20 million for a trip to the space station. "These 10 days have been magnificent for me," she said today. "I've had a very unique experience because of the people here, they have made me very welcome. ... I hope to be able to have this experience once again in the near future. Thank you for all your support helping me prepare for this mission." Tyurin joked that Ansari threatened to stow away and stay on the station, but he said he would make sure she was on board the Soyuz. All six exchanged hugs before the departing crew floated into the Soyuz capsule to prepare the craft for re-entry. A long-time space enthusiast, Ansari's family sponsored the high-profile competition to launch the first commercial suborbital spaceflight. The Ansari X-Prize, as it was known, went to Paul Allen and Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne. Ansari has maintained a space blog during her stay aboard the station and in a downlinked video, she said the voyage had been "wonderful for me, it's been a personal and spiritual experience that I will cherish forever." Despite anxiety before launch and motion sickness during the two days it took to reach the lab complex, "the moment I arrived on the station, it was like going to Mecca or going to Jerusalem for those who are believers," she said. "It was like a homecoming for me to be here and be able to have this wonderful experience of floating like a feather throughout the station, getting to know all the astronauts and cosmonauts, who are truly, truly special people, to be part of this international community and learn how they interact in these really close quarters together and how they make it work. Because it could be really difficult at times as you can imagine. "But they work so well together and I think they can be an example to all of us on Earth to learn how we can live together and work together and help each other and be an inspiration for each other. I hope to be part of that in the future, to bring that message to more people, to be able to share my experience."
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The Hubble Space Telescope has become astronomy's crown jewel for knowledge and discovery. The great observatory was placed high above Earth following its launch aboard space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990. The astronauts of STS-31 recount their mission in this post-flight film presentation.
Space shuttle Atlantis is delivered to Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39B on August 2 to begin final preparations for blastoff on the STS-115 mission to resume construction of the International Space Station.
Just after 1 a.m. local time August 2, the crawler-transporter began the slow move out of the Vehicle Assembly Building carrying space shuttle Atlantis toward the launch pad.
The long voyage of exploration to Jupiter and its many moons by the Galileo spacecraft began on October 18, 1989 with launch from Kennedy Space Center aboard the space shuttle Atlantis. The crew of mission STS-34 tell the story of their flight to dispatch the probe -- fitted with an Inertial Upper Stage rocket motor -- during this post-flight presentation film.
VIDEO:
EXPEDITION 14 BLASTS OFF ABOARD SOYUZ ROCKET 