Space traffic control will be needed at the International Space Station as a busy timeframe of missions and resupply flights continue for our home port in space. In a choreographed ballet of spaceships, ESA's first Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) resupply ship and NASA's Space Shuttle Endeavour are scheduled to liftoff on March 9 and 11, respectively, to dock with the ISS, while a third - Russia's Soyuz - is due to arrive early in April. The heavy traffic comes just a few weeks after Space Shuttle Atlantis left the ISS on February 18, delivering the Columbus science lab to the station. With Endeavour scheduled to be docked to the ISS from March 13 – 24, the ATV must patiently wait in a “parking orbit,” travelling in a holding pattern below the station, and will then dock after the shuttle leaves.
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You ain't seen nothin' yet!
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