Roscosmos / ESA / NASA
PHOTOS OF THE DAY... These historic images were taken by European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli...who headed back to Earth along with two of his fellow Expedition 27 crewmembers onboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on May 23. Before the Soyuz was to begin deorbit operations that would lead to its safe touchdown in Kazakhstan later that day, it remained in a stationary position 600 feet away from the orbiter Endeavour and the International Space Station (ISS) for about 30 minutes when Nespoli took these amazing snapshots.
Roscosmos / ESA / NASA
Photos of the shuttle docked to the ISS were originally supposed to be taken during Discovery’s mission on STS-133 last February. However, the Soyuz that would’ve conducted a so-called flyabout maneuver of the outpost on that flight was an updated and untested version of the spacecraft...making officials at the Russian Federal Space Agency hesitant about conducting the maneuver at that time. NASA ultimately cancelled it for STS-133, and considered postponing the photo session till STS-135 when the opportunity presented itself on STS-134...after Endeavour’s liftoff was delayed for about two weeks following her original launch attempt on April 29. The timing allowed Endeavour to be at the ISS when another Soyuz vehicle (which was an older, more reliable version) was to undock from the space station to head home...thus leading to these historic portraits of two of the largest manned vehicles ever to be built for human spaceflight. To view more awesome images like these, go to this NASA gallery page.
Roscosmos / ESA / NASA
EDIT: Here's the HD video that Paolo Nespoli also shot of the ISS/shuttle stack on May 23...
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