The STS-116 crew members visited NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida last week for the crew equipment interface test. The test is a routine part of astronaut training and launch preparations, and allows astronauts to get hands-on with the equipment and flight hardware that will be used during the mission.

Source: http://www.amsat.org/amsat/archive/sarex/48hour/msg00041.html

On Wednesday the crew conducted a test of the Space Video Gateway to be used in November for the first HDTV interactive downlinks with the Discovery Channel and NHK (Nippon Hoso Kyokai). The hardware was provided by NASA and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency for temporary installation on the space station.

Source: http://www.amsat.org/amsat/archive/sarex/48hour/msg00043.html

NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency have named two astronauts and two cosmonauts to make up the the next International Space Station crew, Expedition 15. Astronauts Clayton Anderson, KD5PLA, and Daniel Tani, KD5TXE, will travel to the station next year as flight engineers. While their duty tours will not coincide, if the current schedule holds, there will always be at least one US and one Russian radio amateur aboard the ISS for the next year. Cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin, RN3FI, and Oleg Kotov will spend six months aboard the orbiting laboratory.