U S astronaut Colonel E. Michael Fincke, popularly known as Mike Fincke, the NASA Astronaut, is on his third sojourn to outer space. The space shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to be launched to the International Space Station (ISS) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida this night. The mission named STS-134 will have a six-member crew and Mike is the Mission Specialist No.1 in this mission, said a press release of the Friends of Assam and Seven Sisters (FASS) here today.Mike is a household name in Assam and happens to be a son-in-law of the State by virtue of his marriage to an Assamese-origin girl Renita Saikia, who is also a NASA engineer.
Colonel Finke will sit up on the flight deck in the cockpit and help the launching and landing of this complex aerospace vehicle, the space shuttle. He along with two other astronauts will perform four spacewalks. During the 14-day mission, Endeavour and its crew will deliver the Express Logistics Carrier-3, Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS), a high-pressure gas tank and additional spare parts for the Dextre robotic helper to the ISS. It’s a very important mission in terms of science. The AMS is going to be installed on the outside of the International Space Station and collect some amazing data and detect some things that will help to understand the universe a lot better. Mike had been to the outer space twice before – in 2004 and 2008-9 and stayed there for a year.
Mike Fincke, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) alumni, had come to the NE region of India in September 2009 and interacted with the students in Guwahati and Shillong, which was organized by the FASS. It had also organized a direct talk between Mike Fincke, while he was in Outer Space, and the students of four educational institutions of Dibrugarh, Guwahati, Imphal and Shillong in 2008-09.
The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest and most complex international scientific project in history. The ISS is a research facility in outer space and orbits at analtitude of approximately 350 km above the surface of the Earth, and travels at an average speed of 27,700 kilometres per hour, completing 15.7 orbits per day, making roughly one orbit every 90 minutes and it passes over 90 per cent of the world’s surface. The ISS’s length and width is about the size of a football field. The International Space Station marked its 10th anniversary of continuous human occupation on November 2, 2010. The ISS can accommodate six persons and it is larger than a conventional five-bedroom house, and has two bathrooms, a gymnasium and research laboratories.
FASS wishes Mike Fincke a very successful voyage during his third visit to the ISS. It will invite him again to Assam to interact with the students and teachers of the North East. Mike Fincke’s wife Renita and their three children Chandra, Tarali and Surya and his in-laws Rupesh and Probha Saikia have already arrived in Florida for the launching of theSpace Shuttle, said the FASS in its press release signed by its secretary general Bidyananda Barkakoty.
Colonel Finke will sit up on the flight deck in the cockpit and help the launching and landing of this complex aerospace vehicle, the space shuttle. He along with two other astronauts will perform four spacewalks. During the 14-day mission, Endeavour and its crew will deliver the Express Logistics Carrier-3, Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS), a high-pressure gas tank and additional spare parts for the Dextre robotic helper to the ISS. It’s a very important mission in terms of science. The AMS is going to be installed on the outside of the International Space Station and collect some amazing data and detect some things that will help to understand the universe a lot better. Mike had been to the outer space twice before – in 2004 and 2008-9 and stayed there for a year.
Mike Fincke, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) alumni, had come to the NE region of India in September 2009 and interacted with the students in Guwahati and Shillong, which was organized by the FASS. It had also organized a direct talk between Mike Fincke, while he was in Outer Space, and the students of four educational institutions of Dibrugarh, Guwahati, Imphal and Shillong in 2008-09.
FASS wishes Mike Fincke a very successful voyage during his third visit to the ISS. It will invite him again to Assam to interact with the students and teachers of the North East. Mike Fincke’s wife Renita and their three children Chandra, Tarali and Surya and his in-laws Rupesh and Probha Saikia have already arrived in Florida for the launching of theSpace Shuttle, said the FASS in its press release signed by its secretary general Bidyananda Barkakoty.
