By Charlie Sufana, AJ9N:

Hi all,

Mike Fincke KE5AIT on board the ISS had a very successful contact with the Erie Planetarium this afternoon at approximately 2004-05-25 18:01 UTC. There were 18 questions asked before Mike went over the horizon from telebridge station VK5ZAI. As you may be aware, Mike is a pretty new ham and did an outstanding job with the students at Erie. At Erie, Jim Gavio (Planetarium Director)
was assisted by Ron N3BXL, Paul N3UMM, Jim WW3S, and Jim KB3IXG.

An unmanned Russian Progress resupply ship blasted off today from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to deliver 2½ tons of food, water, fuel and supplies to the residents of the International Space Station.

As the Station flew over the heart of Africa, the ISS Progress 14 craft lifted off its Central Asian launch pad right on time at 8:34 a.m. EDT (1234 GMT), and less than 10 minutes later, settled into orbit and deployed its solar arrays and navigational antennas.

Fresh from six months in orbit, astronaut Mike Foale and cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri, two of the world's most experienced space fliers, are available Thursday to discuss their experiences live on NASA TV.

Foale and Kaleri are available Thursday for media interviews from 6:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. EDT.

Testerday, May 25th, the International Space Station was flanked by two Russian Progress rockets. Progress 13, filled with trash to be burned in Earth's atmosphere, has just undocked from the ISS and it's pulling away from the space station. Meanwhile, Progress 14, carrying supplies from Earth, is chasing the ISS. Docking will occur on May 27th.

You might be able to see all three spaceships if the ISS flies over your hometown in the days ahead.
Visit http://www.spaceweather.com for more info.

Tnx to SpaceWeather. com. Gerry, VE6GP