Mir Space Station

Astronaut Charlie Precourt recounts piloting Space Shuttle Atlantis to landing

In a first-person account, former NASA astronaut Charlie Precourt describes commanding Space Shuttle Atlantis through its final descent after a 10-day mission delivering supplies and a new crew to the Russian Mir station. He details disengaging the autopilot near Mach 1 at 45,000 feet and relying on mission pilot Eileen Collins' scripted calls to guide the unpowered glider to a precise touchdown at Kennedy Space Center.

inspire.eaa.org · 2026-09-16

Toyohiro Akiyama, Japan's first astronaut and space journalist, dies at 84

Toyohiro Akiyama, a Tokyo Broadcasting System correspondent who became the first Japanese citizen in space and the first journalist to report from orbit, died August 26 from lower gastrointestinal bleeding. He flew aboard Soyuz TM-11 to the Mir space station in December 1990, spending about a week filing daily audio and video dispatches for TBS despite battling space sickness and nicotine withdrawal.

arstechnica.com · 2026-09-02