NASA astronaut Doug Hurley arrived at the International Space Station with Bob Behnken aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft at the end of May 2020. The mission marked the first astronaut use of the Crew Dragon, and the first crewed launch from U.S. soil since the end of the space shuttle program in 2011.
As well as working on various scientific experiments, Hurley has also been taking photos of some of the incredible sights viewable from the space station as it orbits Earth about 250 miles up, and posting them on his Twitter account for everyone to enjoy. We’ve picked out some of the best so far:
Doug Hurley: “I never get tired of this view from the Cupola as our orbit transitions into night.”Doug Hurley/NASA“Cloud art in the South Pacific.”Doug Hurley/NASA“The Bahamas, absolutely one of the most beautiful sights on Earth from space.”Doug Hurley/NASA“Sandstorms in Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.”Doug Hurley/NASA“We flew over this Saharan dust plume today in the west central Atlantic. Amazing how large an area it covers!”Doug Hurley/NASA“Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks; Shoshone, Caribou-Targhee, and Bridger-Teton National Forests, as well as the Wind River Mountains, all in one picture.”Doug Hurley/NASA“After a long haul flying northeast over the Pacific, even at orbital speeds, the first sight of land is the Baja Peninsula.”Doug Hurley/NASA“Was hoping for clear weather as we flew over England, France, and Belgium but the cloud pattern was almost as good.”Doug Hurley/NASA“I stayed up late last night to spend some time looking out the window. It was a beautiful day to see the Great Lakes and my childhood home in upstate New York.”Doug Hurley/NASA“Earth Art, southwest Libya.”Doug Hurley/NASA“The Los Angeles Basin, where @SpaceX headquarters is located and where Dragon #Endeavour was built. The marine layer receded just enough to see Santa Catalina and San Clemente Islands.”Doug Hurley/NASA
NASA needs good weather for Wednesday’s Crew-5 launch. How’s it looking?
NASA had been hoping to launch SpaceX’s Crew-5 astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday, October 4, but the arrival of Hurricane Ian in Florida disrupted mission preparations at the Kennedy Space Center to such an extent that NASA pushed the launch to the following day.
Key to SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket getting away on time is the weather. Hurricane Ian may have gone, but Florida’s Space Coast is no stranger to lighter storms and other troublesome weather conditions that could prompt mission controllers to hit pause on the countdown clock.
ISS gets more crowded with 3 new astronauts taking crew to 10
The International Space Station (ISS) is currently a little more crowded than usual after three new crew members arrived at the facility on Wednesday, September 21, bringing the crew count to 10.
The new arrivals include NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin. The mission is Rubio's first to space. The trio arrived aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on Wednesday afternoon ET following the launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan just over three hours earlier.
