Space station crew to ring in new year 15 times

The Alpha crew, from left: Sergei Krikalev, Yuri Gidzenko and Bill Shepherd

By Richard Stenger
CNN.com Writer

(CNN) -- The residents of international space station Alpha will experience multiple New Years when 2001 arrives, crossing and re-crossing the international dateline 15 times.

But the crew will officially celebrate the event only once aboard their high-flying habitation, some 240 miles (386 km) above Earth, NASA said.

"Celebrating the arrival of the new year 15 times strikes me as something of a challenge," said NASA spokesman John Ira Petty.

Challenging perhaps, but unusual time quirks are nothing new to the crew, Russians Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev and U.S. commander Bill Shepherd, who have logged plenty of time in orbit.

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Shepherd flew on three space shuttle missions and his cosmonaut partners both lived on the Russian space station Mir. Now all three are halfway into a four-month stay aboard their new home. Circling the Earth every 90 minutes, the space station zooms by 15 sunrises and sunsets each day.

"It's kind of routine for them. Krikalev has spent more than a year total time in space," Petty said.

The space veterans plan a quiet New Year's weekend, with a light work schedule on tap and additional conferences with their families planned to usher in 2001, NASA said.

Soon afterwards, they will resume a busy schedule readying the $100 billion station for the newest module, the U.S. laboratory Destiny, which should arrive in mid-January.

Part 2: The Science of the International Space Station
December 26, 2000
Space station crew fields questions from CNN.com readers
December 15, 2000
Astronauts enter space station
December 8, 2000
A space reporter's trek to the highly remote frontier
November 14, 2000

HSF - International Space Station
NASA
Office of Space Flight - Mir

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