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23/01/2004: "High flies the ISS"

I caught a sight of the International Space Station flying above St. Gallen at 5.46pm. Standing outdoors by -5°C temperature and on top of the university campus I had a clear view over the low South-East trajectory of this 4-minute-long sighting. I had my digital camera ready and tried to see Commander Michael Foale and Flight Engineer Alexander Kaleri waving out the window - but didn't.

On a related news, the rover Spirit sent 20min of data back to Earth earlier today responding to command instructions and controllers at NASA will be trying again later. No good news yet, but better than yesterday. Pete Thiesinger, Mars rover project manager, said: "I expect we will get functionality back from this rover. The chances that it will be perfect again are not good. But the chances that will not regain functionality are low, too."

And NASA is also busy preparing the Sunday 5:05am GMT Mars landing of Opportunity. It will be an even more challenging landing than for Spirit. The Martian atmosphere is much thinner at the Opportunity landing site than it is where Spirit landed, and a recent dust storm in the region thinned it even further. The conditions mean that Opportunity's parachute will have a harder time slowing the craft as it prepares to land. To compensate, the craft will deploy its parachute much sooner before touchdown. Wayne Lee, the engineer in charge of Opportunity's entry, descent and landing, said: "This will be challenging because it's the highest-altitude landing that NASA has ever attempted."

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