Astronaut “tweets” available

Houston, Texas - April 7, 2009 – NASA astronaut Mike Massimino is using Twitter to provide a behind the scenes peek at the last weeks of his training for the fifth and final shuttle servicing mission to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Massimino, whose Twitter username is Astro_Mike, will fly aboard space shuttle Atlantis as a mission specialist and spacewalker during the STS-125 mission, targeted to launch May 12. Atlantis' 11-day flight will include five spacewalks to refurbish and upgrade Hubble with state-of-the-art science instruments. After the astronaut's visit, Hubble's capabilities will be expanded and its lifetime extended through at least 2014. This will be Massimino's second trip to space. He first flew on the STS-109 mission to Hubble in 2002. During that flight, he performed two spacewalks. Already he’s written that he’s at the gym, pumping iron and getting strong for space; in a simulator, practicing for the first spacewalk; getting ready to fly in a T-38 and feeling a need for speed; and checking out the space shuttle, Atlantis. Click here to follow Massimino’s Twitter. Along with Massimino, the crew of Atlantis includes Commander Scott Altman, Pilot Gregory C. Johnson and Mission Specialists Andrew Feustel, Michael Good, John Grunsfeld and Megan McArthur. You can follow NASA mission activities on Twitter at http://twitter.com/nasa. For a complete list of all agency missions on Twitter and other social networking media, visit http://www.nasa.gov/collaborate.

Astronaut Mike Massimino enters the water at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, or NBL, to practice servicing the Hubble Space Telescope. The NBL is a 6.2 million gallon pool where the astronauts experience the sensation of floating in space. Massimino will practice space-walking, or EVA, procedures on a full size mock-up of the Shuttle’s cargo bay and the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: NASA

• 2012 - 02/22 - Borschberg Begins Simulated 72-Hour Solar Flight
• 2012 - 02/20 - NASA Celebrates 50 Years of Americans in Space
• 2012 - 02/16 - Tiny Robots Swarm Fly in Formation
• 2012 - 02/16 - Civil War Balloon Replica to Take Flight This Summer
• 2012 - 02/09 - Application Deadline Approaches for EAA Scholarship