The arrival of the shuttle Atlantis crew at the International Space Station today has raised the number of radio amateurs now aboard the space station to five. Greeting the six Atlantis astronauts as they entered the ISS at 1230 UTC were Expedition 13 crew members Commander and Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov, RV3BS, US astronaut Jeff Williams, KC5TVQ, and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter, DF4TR. The shuttle linked up with the ISS a couple of hours earlier, following its oft-scrubbed launch from Kennedy Space Center on September 9. Complete story at http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2006/09/11/101/?nc=1

Fellow ISS Fan Club members,

Got to see the Space Shuttle Atlantis flying behind the ISS this evening.

At 7:38 pm local time (05:38z Sept 11), both the ISS and Atlantis were visible in the Southwestern sky at 17 degree elevation., travelling towards the South to an elevation of 10 degrees. The total duration was about 2 minutes -- of which I got to see the last 30 seconds because I was driving to the viewing location and made it just in time.

At that time, Altantis appeared to be trailing the space station by about distance between the thumb and forefinger when held out at arms length. I suspect the distance between the two satellites were perhaps within 100 miles and closing.