The Week in Germany: Business and Technology

September 15, 2006

Thomas Reiter gets Visitors in Space

German Astronaut Thomas Reiter and his colleagues on the International Space Station (ISS) welcomed their first visitors in space after the US space shuttle Atlantis docked there Monday.

The 100-ton space craft docked perpendicular to the ISS, moving at a very slow speed for space: 1.8 meters per second. Before the docking, the Atlantis commander Brent Jett flew the ship within 200 meters of the space station so that Reiter’s colleagues Pawel Winogradow and Jeff Williams could photograph the underside of the ship to determine whether the heat shield had been damaged during the launch.

The Atlantis crew was not just paying a social visit to Reiter and Co. As soon as the crew of six arrived aboard the space station, they began preparations for installing the solar panels they had transported from Cape Canaveral. On Thursday, the accordion shaped panes were successfully unfurled.

Reiter arrived on the ISS on July 6 via the U.S. space shuttle Discovery for a six-month mission aboard the ISS.

Links:

Chancellor Merkel Talks with Astronaut Reiter on ISS

ESA Astronaut to Embark on Long ISS Mission

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