NASA and its international partners have named the crews that will live and work aboard the International Space Station for the next two years. The crew members make up three expeditions to the station and represent four space agencies.

The assignments include the first long-duration station flight for a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut and the second long-duration station flight for an astronaut from the European Space Agency (ESA). The JAXA and ESA astronauts will work on the installation and checkout of the Japanese Experiment Module Kibo and European Columbus laboratories on the station.

Mission control teams are working to assess systems affected by a power loss aboard the International Space Station early Sunday morning. The station's three crew members were not in any danger, but it did turn an off-duty day into a full work shift.

About 1 a.m. EST, one of the power channels of the P4 solar array electrical system went down because of a glitch with a device known as a direct current switching unit. It controls power distribution from the solar array to the battery systems and other hardware. The glitch resulted in a temporary loss of communications, and shut down some equipment, including a few science facilities and heating units and control moment gyroscope #2. The station never lost orientation control, but it operated most of the day with two of four gyros. Control moment gyroscope #3 previously had been powered down.

NASA engineers have attached the shuttle Atlantis to its immense external fuel tank and twin rocket boosters, bringing the spacecraft one step closer to a March launch towards the International Space Station (ISS).

Teams of shuttle workers are going over the multitude of electrical and mechanical connections between the 122-foot (37-meter) orbiter and its 15-story external tank, which stand poised in launch position inside NASA's cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/070209_sts117_shuttleprep.html

Space Shuttle Atlantis hangs suspended in its sling in the transfer aisle of the Vehicle Assembly Building. Preparations are underway to lift the vehicle up into high bay 1, where it will be lowered onto the mobile launcher platform for mating to the external tank and solid rocket boosters.

The orbiter was transported to the Vehicle Assembly Building on Wednesday. First motion was at 6:19 a.m. EST.

The rollover marks a milestone in the start of the vehicle's journey to Launch Pad 39A, scheduled for Feb. 14. Mission STS-117 will be the first launch at Pad 39A in four years.

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An International Space Station Expedition 14 ARISS school contact has been planned with students at Hanazono Elementary School, Akashi-city, Japan on Monday, 12 Feb. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 09:12 UTC.

The contact will be a direct between stations NA1SS and 8N3F. The contact should be audible in the Japan and Eastern Asia. Interested parties are invited to listen in on the 145.80 MHz downlink. The participants are expected to conduct the conversation in English.

Hanazono Elementary, is located in Akashi, the city that Japan Standard time is defined by. Students sometimes go to the planetarium of the astronomical science building in Akashi or observe the starry sky at the playground. Students went to camp at astronomical observatory park in our prefecture when they were 5th grade and looked at stars through a two-meter telescope. We are breeding the Japanese killifish that were on the space shuttle with the astronaut Chiaki Mukai. There are many children interested in outer space in our school.