Wednesday, September 02, 2009 WASHINGTON: Two US astronauts gingerly stepped out of the shuttle Discovery on Tuesday and began the first spacewalk of the mission's nine-day stay at the International Space Station (ISS).Astronaut Nicole Stott emerged from the orbiter's decompression chamber at 2149 GMT some 350 kilometers (255 miles) above the Pacific ocean and was joined in the blackness of space by Mission Specialist Danny Olivas for what is expected to be a walk of 6.5 hours, according to US space agency NASA. With the help of the station's robotic arm and guided by shuttle Commander Rick Sturckow and spacewalk choreographer Pat Forrester, the duo will be removing an old liquid ammonia coolant tank from the ISS truss. A new, 800-kilogram (1,760-pound) replacement will be installed during the second spacewalk. They will also be retrieving experiment equipment from the outside of the ISS, from the European Columbus module, and returning it to Earth for processing.Astronauts are scheduled to conduct two more spacewalks during the mission, the fourth of five planned for the shuttle program this year. The last is scheduled for November.
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in...
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