More than 100 days into a planned six-month stay aboard
the International Space Station, Expedition Four flight
engineers Dan Bursch and Carl Walz have provided a rare
glimpse of life in orbit.
In an open letter sent from the space station this weekend,
Bursch shares his thoughts and experiences over 122 days in
space. The letter may be found at:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov
Bursch, along with Walz and commander Yury Onufrienko, has
been living and working on the station since early December.
In the ensuing months, crewmembers celebrated Christmas in
space and performed two spacewalks, and currently are
preparing for the arrival of the next Shuttle crew later this
week.
Bursch’s “letter home” provides an intimate look at life on
board the station, including day-to-day operations, the
challenges of being away from family and the excitement of
life in space. Walz compares his experience as a Shuttle-
based spacewalker to that of the February spacewalk he and
Bursch conducted from the space station.
The Expedition Four crew will return to Earth in June aboard
Endeavour after spending more than six months in orbit. They
will be replaced by another three-person crew, extending more
than 17 months of continued human occupancy on board the
station.
Around-the-clock coverage of the ongoing space station
mission and the current STS-110 mission is available on NASA
Television. NASA TV is accessible through GE2, transponder
9C, with a frequency of 3880 MHz, an orbital position of 85
degrees West Longitude and audio at 6.8 MHz.
