The first wave of an astronaut team set to double the International Space Station's population later this year is gearing up for what promises to be a busy mission aboard the orbiting laboratory.

Commanded by veteran Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, the space station's three-man Expedition 19 crew is training for a planned March 25 launch that will ultimate be followed by another three-astronaut team to bring the orbital lab up to a six-person crew in May.

"Doubling your crew size means a lot," said NASA astronaut Michael Barratt, who forms the core of the joint Expedition 19/20 crew with Padalka, in a Friday briefing. "Certainly, onboard it means there'll be a lot of people in line for a small number of bathrooms, for the exercise equipment, for the galley table. Everything that, essentially, provides support for the crew, we're going to stretch those resources quite a bit."

NASA is a step closer to the first flight test of the rocket that will send humans on their way to the moon as part of the agency's Constellation Program. Rocket hardware critical for the test, known as Ares I-X, was completed this week at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. The flight of Ares I-X will be an important step toward verifying analysis tools and techniques needed to develop Ares I, NASA's next crew launch vehicle.

The Langley-designed and built hardware is engineered to represent the Orion crew module and a launch abort system that increases crew safety. In late January, the rocket elements will be shipped from Langley to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This hardware and other elements from around the country will be integrated into the Ares I-X rocket, the first in a series of unpiloted test vehicles.

NASA astronauts of the STS-126 space shuttle mission will begin a new journey next week -- an 11-day trip to greet U.S. military personnel serving overseas. Shuttle Endeavour's crew will pay a special visit to troops in Germany and the Middle East from Jan. 26 to Feb. 5.

The trip is sponsored by Armed Forces Entertainment, the lead Department of Defense agency for providing entertainment to U.S. military personnel serving overseas. The shuttle crew members visiting the troops are Navy Capt. Chris Ferguson, who commanded the flight, Air Force Col. Eric Boe, who served as the pilot, and Mission Specialists Donald Pettit, Navy Capt. Steve Bowen, Navy Capt. Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper and Army Lt. Col. Shane Kimbrough.

Expedition 18 Commander Mike Fincke, aboard the International Space Station with Flight Engineers Sandy Magnus and Yury Lonchakov, recently filmed a high-definition tour of the orbiting complex. The 35-minute tour will air as a special Video File on NASA Television's HD Channel 105 at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. CST Thursday and Friday.

The special Video File also will be broadcast in standard-definition on NASA TV immediately following the regularly scheduled daily Video File broadcasts. For technical information on how to receive the special broadcast in high definition, and for NASA TV streaming video, downlink and scheduling information, visit:

The first American to command five space missions, the first commander of the International Space Station (ISS) and a member of the first repair team to service a satellite on-orbit will be enshrined this May in the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame.

James Wetherbee, William Shepherd and George "Pinky" Nelson were confirmed on Wednesday by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation as comprising the eighth group of space shuttle astronauts to be named to the Hall. A gala and an induction ceremony will be hosted at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, home to the Hall of Fame, on May 1-2, 2009.

A little bit of the final frontier is coming to Missouri during a live in-flight education downlink from the International Space Station. On Tuesday, Jan. 27, from 10:05 a.m. to 10:25 a.m. CST, selected students from the Northeast Nodaway school district and Northwest Missouri State University will spend 20 minutes talking to Expedition 18 astronauts Mike Fincke and Sandy Magnus aboard the International Space Station. The event will be the first with a Missouri school in the eight-year history of education downlink opportunities.

Northeast Nodaway students have been preparing for the downlink by visiting the NASA Web site to learn about the station, Expedition 18 crewmembers, mission objectives and science experiments. The school is part of the NASA Explorer School project. The project offers a three-year partnership between NASA and school teams, consisting of teachers and education administrators from diverse communities across the country. Focusing on underserved populations, the project is designed for education communities at the fourth to ninth grade levels to help middle schools improve teaching and learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education