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Astrolab Highlights - Short English Version
ESA TV Exchanges
There has a lot of demand for a shorter English version of the German-language Astrolab Post-Flight Presentation released last week.
Today's transmission satisfies this in the form of a 16-minute summary of the Astrolab mission, featuring the best images from 166 days in space, much of the footage shot by Thomas Reiter himself.
The script is online as a PDF file under http://television.esa.int/photos/EbS48928.pdf
Astrolab Highlights ñ Short English Version
Script
Launch and Docking 1:38 min
Thomas Reiter began the European Space Agency Astrolab Mission on 4 July 2006 - a public holiday in the United States and a special day for Thomas too, because Germany was approaching the semi-finals of the Football World Cup.
The successful launch was greeted with relief because construction of the International Space Station ISS could go steadily ahead.
All the measures that NASA had taken in recent years to improve the safety of their Space Shuttle fleet appeared to have been successful.
It was two days from the launch to the rendezvous with the ISS and the crew had their hands full.
Immediately before docking, the surface of the Shuttle was photographed by the ISS crew in order to detect possible damage to the heat protection tiles..
A few minutes after this exercise the Shuttle docked with the ISS. Pavel Vinogradov, ISS Commander, and Jeff Williams, chief engineer gave Tho