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The Space Shuttle Atlantis and its crew are home after a 12-day journey of more than 4.9 million miles in space. The mission, STS-115, succeeded in restarting assembly of the International Space Station. The crew delivered and installed the massive P3/P4 truss, an integral part of the station’s backbone, and two sets of solar arrays that will eventually provide one quarter of the station’s power.

NASA Welcomes Space Shuttle Crew Back to Earth

After 14 years of waiting, Sweden’s first astronaut, Christer Fuglesang, is scheduled for the next mission, STS-116. He writes in his latest newsletter:

Now there is more and more focus on us, STS-116/ISS-12A.1. Everything is moving very well, so well that the program management are investigating if we can’t start a week early, December 7! This is very much so the mission will be over by Christmas, when most people would like to be off work. We’re less happy in the flight crew, as our training schedule is already full, as I mentioned in my last newsletter. If this happens, there will probably be exercises even on a number of weekends. Besides a number of relatives and friends have already begun to make their travel plans for Florida, and I hope they haven’t booked without some flexibility. In a week (September 28) there will be a high level meeting, and then a decision should be made.

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The last few weeks have been hectic, with lots to do. This has even taken time away from the gym, where I’ve only found time for once a week. On the other hand, I was in the pool twice last week, and that should count as work-outs. Later today I fly to the Cape again, the third time in four week.

Christer Fuglesang told the newspaper “Dagens Nyheter”:

We’re working a lot with the module that holds our equipment that that our unpacking will go as smoothly as possible up there. We’re going to replace a camera on the space station, and we’re working a lot with that.

I wrote in July about Fuglesang’s 14 year wait to get into space:

He trained first with the Russians to take part in joint Russian-ESA missions to the Mir space station. Fuglesang was a back-up member of a mission to Mir in 1995, then switched to the American astronaut program in 1996, and became the first European astronaut with both Russian and American training.