With the departure last week of European Space Agency astronaut Frank DeWinne, Canada’s Bob Thirsk and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, life aboard the International Space Station has gotten a whole lot quieter.
Until a new crew arrives on Dec. 23, NASA's Jeff Williams and Maxim Suraev are holding down the fort, which is considerably larger than the last time just two people were left in charge.
"There's not a lot of activity going on," NASA's spaceflight chief Bill Gerstenmaier told reporters recently, when asked if the prospect of a two-man crew posed an issues for station operations.
"We moved all the major activities that were occurring to other periods when there will be more crew. We are prepared and ready to cut back a little on operations, but still be able to do a little bit of science research with just two crew members on orbit," he said.
The last time just two people were living on the station was in 2006, before the arrival of the Japanese and European science laboratories and other modules.
We may get a clue how things are going up there if Maxim has more time to write. The cosmonaut has been keeping a blog, translated and posted on the internet by Russia Today, that offers a different perspective than the usual NASA status reports.
(Good-bye, Roman. That's Romanenko on the left and buddy Maxim Suraev on the right. Credit: Roscosmos)
Tags: NASA, Space Station
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