March 21, 2011 - Half a Year on Mir

Published in cooperation with The Planetary Society

Spend the year in space, one week at a time

Recent Weeks

May 14, 2012 - Monkey Nebula

May 7, 2012 - Getting a Grip on INTELSAT

April 30, 2012 - Dust in the Wind

April 23, 2012 - Celebrate Astronomy Day

April 16, 2012 - Rover Rides Again

April 9, 2012 - Mercury’s Marvelous Morphology

April 2, 2012 - A Matter of Truss

March 26, 2012 - Hubble Bubble

March 19, 2012 - Rocket Pioneer Centennial

March 12, 2012 - Southern Lights on Saturn

March 5, 2012 - A New Star in Town

February 27, 2012 - Hubble Upgrade

February 20, 2012 - Sideways Supernova

February 13, 2012 - Auroras Gone Wild

February 6, 2012 - Hubble Telescope Tune-Up

January 30, 2012 - Lunar Orbiter Liftoff

January 23, 2012 - Magellan Turns up the Stereo

January 16, 2012 - Southern Sibling Sees Stars

January 9, 2012 - Hitching a Ride Home

January 2, 2012 - Transforming the Space Frontier

December 26, 2011 - These Laws Can't Be Broken

December 19, 2011 - Long and Winding Road

December 12, 2011 - Blast from the Past

December 5, 2011 - It’s Just Like Folding a Map

November 28, 2011 - A Warmer, Wetter Mars

November 21, 2011 - Spy in the Sky

Customer Comment

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2012 Desk Calendar

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144 full-color pages
6" x 9", spiral bound
Art-quality paper

Weekly photo essay
Daily Moon phases
Night sky events
Space trivia
Holidays
Room for notes/appts

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Customer Comment

I love each new year's pictures, and flat calendar layout - plenty of room to write in for each day of the month.

--Joellen S., Saratoga, CA

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The Week in Space

March 21-27, 2011

Half a Year on Mir The Russian Mir space station appears to float in front of the cloud-blanketed Earth in this view from the space shuttle Atlantis, which was launched on the STS-76 mission fifteen years ago this week. STS-76, the third Shuttle-Mir docking mission, saw the two spacecraft connected in orbit for five days. When Atlantis undocked at the end of that time, it was one astronaut lighter: Shannon Lucid remained on Mir for what was supposed to be a 140-day stay as Mir’s first American woman researcher. Lucid’s ride home, STS-79, was delayed twice because of solid rocket motor replacements and two Florida hurricanes, and she ended up spending six months in orbit—a record for women that was not surpassed until 2007 when Sunita Williams flew on the ISS Expedition 15 crew.

Image credit: NASA

Weekly Calendar

March 21-27, 2011

Holidays - Sky Events - Space History

Monday 21

Uranus in conjunction with Sun

1965: Ranger 9 launched

Tuesday 22

Mercury at greatest elongation (19° E)

1982: STS-3 Columbia launched
1996: STS-76 Atlantis launched
1997: Comet Hale-Bopp closest approach to Earth

Wednesday 23

1840: John William Draper takes first photograph of Moon
1912: Wernher von Braun born
1965: Gemini III launched
2001: Mir space station reenters atmosphere