Stuffed lion mascot is new expedition to ISS

A stuffed lion is the mascot for American Jeffrey Williams and Russian Maxim Suráyev Canadian Guy Laliberté, the expedition members who will depart on 30 September at the International Space Station (ISS, for its acronym in English).

Suráyev, who will engineer aboard this mission, said the lion will be at the same time "mascot and indicator of weightlessness, when separating the Soyuz propellant third stage. The Russian astronaut said toy is a very endearing: "I have two young daughters, whom I asked to take turns sleeping each night with this lion, that smacked home during the six months that will remain in orbit".
The next expedition to the ISS will be the first in his career, so both daughters, Arina and Ksenia, they will fire him at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, built in the days of the Soviet Union and Russia currently leases in Kazakhstan.

Suráyev takes 13 years for the Russian team of astronauts and said jokingly that probably needed to "grow old like a good cognac. The Canadian Guy Laliberté, founder and president of the company famous Cirque du Soleil, will travel to the ISS as space tourists. In addition to a photo of his newborn grandson and small mementos of his wife and children, Laliberté will be put into orbit nine clown noses to give to all tenants of the station. The most important function is to make propaganda for Laliberté of One Drop philanthropic project aimed at preserving the water resources of the Earth.

For six months in orbit, the new issue should receive the three ISS Progress cargo space, take a hike extravehicular to install Russian research module MIM-2, working with crews of three U.S. shuttles and carry out almost fifty scientific experiments of various lengths.

Space debris passes just over a mile from the Discovery

The remains of a European Ariane rocket rose to 1.3 miles of the shuttle Discovery docked at the International Space Station, without its being a threat to the ships or the 13 astronauts who live there, according to NASA.

The U.S. space agency said the piece of rocket went from left to right above the ISS.

"The mission control team continues to observe the remains (Ariane), but these went as expected and are no longer of concern to the orbiting complex," said spokeswoman Nicole Cloutier Lemasters NASA.

Discovery and the ISS coupled orbit the Earth every 90 minutes at about 27,000 kilometers per hour at an altitude of about 385 miles.

The remains of the rocket, the Ariane 5 precisely, sent into space in 2006 for placement into orbit two communications satellites, passed by the orbiting complex at about 1407 GMT, the U.S. space agency said.

NASA watched for days the approximation of space debris to make sure not collide with the ISS and Discovery. A more dangerous form of litter would have required a move to escape through the engine on Discovery.