Msnbc.com (Oberg) -- Space station set for rare eclipse encounter

By chance, orbital crew is due to come within sight of moon's shadow

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11763975/

By James Oberg, NBC News space analyst

Special to MSNBC // Updated: 1:03 a.m. ET March 13, 2006

When the shadow from a total solar eclipse sweeps over Earth on March 29, two
skywatchers should have a guaranteed cloud-free view of the spectacle: NASA
astronaut Bill McArthur and Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev, the current
residents of the international space station.

The date with an eclipse will serve as a fitting celestial sendoff for the
station's Expedition 12 crew members, just days before a new international crew
arrives to take their place.

Between now and then, McArthur and Tokarev will be cleaning up and packing up
for the transition. Also on the agenda for the weeks ahead are a couple of tests
designed to assure space station operations for years to come.

The crew's date with an eclipse is something that NASA says is an unexpected
"bonus." Only a handful of humans have witnessed such a phenomenon, and it's not
clear whether the crew will be able to do anything beyond photographing the
moon's shadow on Earth beneath them.

At one point, it looked as if the space station would be flying right through
the shadow.

The station's Zvezda service module had been scheduled to fire up its rocket
engines on Wednesday to adjust the orbit in anticipation of the replacement
crew's launch on March 30. According to German space engineer Gerhard Holtkamp,
that maneuver would have put the station right in the path of the eclipse over
the coast of southern Turkey.

"With the eclipse shadow moving at triple the speed of sound, and the ISS
faster still, the whole thing is a little like shooting two bullets out of
different directions and trying to make them hit each other," he told MSNBC.com
in an e-mail.

Sources within NASA's Mission Control told MSNBC.com that the maneuver had
nothing to do with the eclipse. "It's to set up phasing and lighting for the
next Soyuz exchange," one expert explained in an e-mail. "The eclipse is a
bonus."