MOSCOW | Fri Mar 15, 2013 1:20am EDT

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Three Russian and American astronauts are stuck for one more day aboard the international space station after foul weather delayed their landing on Friday in the steppes of Central Asia.

Since October, NASA's Kevin Ford and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin have been aboard the orbiting outpost, a $100 billion research laboratory that flies about 250 miles above Earth.

Fog and freezing rain at the landing site in Kazakhstan prevented helicopters from setting up for the crew's return to Earth, NASA TV commentary said during live mission streaming.

A spokesman for the Russian space agency Roskosmos said the landing would be pushed back by one day and is now scheduled for 7:06 a.m. Moscow time (0306 GMT).

The crew's descent back to Earth aboard a Russia Soyuz spacecraft will take less than four hours.

In preparation for their departure, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield took the helm of the space station on Wednesday, becoming the first Canadian to take command of the outpost.

It is only the second time in the 12-year history of the station, a project of 15 nations that has been permanently staffed since November 2000, that command has been turned over to someone who is not American or Russian.

Hadfield will be part of a three-man skeleton crew until NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin arrive later this month.

(Reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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1 of 3. Taking advantage of a weightless environment onboard the Earth-orbiting International Space Station, Expedition 34 Flight Engineer Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency juggles some tomatoes, which he probably considers to be among the more delicious components of a recent ''package'' that arrived from Earth, in this Handout photo courtesy of NASA, taken March 3, 2013.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Wed Mar 13, 2013 9:01pm EDT

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield took the helm of the International Space Station on Wednesday, only the second time in the outpost's 12-year history that command has been turned over to someone who is not American or Russian.

"It's a huge honor and a privilege for me, but also for all the people at the Canadian Space Agency and for my entire country," Hadfield, 53, said during a change of command ceremony aboard the station broadcast on NASA Television.

"Thank you very much for giving me the keys to the family car," Hadfield told outgoing station commander Kevin Ford, who is due to depart on Thursday along with Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin.

"We're going to put some miles on it, but we'll bring it back in good shape," Hadfield said.

Ford, Novitskiy and Tarelkin have been aboard the station, a $100 billion research laboratory that flies about 250 miles above Earth, since October.

Command of the station, a project of 15 nations that has been permanently staffed since November 2000, normally rotates between primary partners United States and Russia.

But in May 2009, Belgian astronaut Frank De Winne became the first station commander from the European Space Agency.

Hadfield, a veteran of two space shuttle missions, is the station's first Canadian commander.

Hadfield will be part of a three-man skeleton crew until NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin arrive later this month.

Hadfield, astronaut Thomas Marshburn and cosmonaut Roman Romanenko have been aboard the station since December 21. They are due to return to Earth on May 13.

Among Hadfield's first duties as commander is overseeing the packing and release of the visiting Space Exploration Technologies' Dragon cargo capsule. The capsule, making a second resupply run for NASA, is due to depart the station on March 25.

Hadfield has taken to Twitter to share his experiences in orbit with short messages and pictures dispatched several times a day. His followers now number more than 512,000.

"My heartfelt congratulations to Commander Hadfield and his family on what is an important milestone for all Canadians," Canada's Industry Minister Christian Paradis said in a statement.

(Editing by Kevin Gray and Phil Berlowitz)

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An artist's rendering of Bigelow Aerospace's balloon-like module attached to the International Space Station is shown in this undated handout supplied by Bigelow Aerospace on January 16, 2013.

LAS VEGAS | Wed Jan 16, 2013 7:06pm EST

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - A low-cost space dwelling that inflates like a balloon in orbit will be tested aboard the International Space Station, opening the door for commercial leases of future free-flying outposts and deep-space astronaut habitats for NASA.

The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, nicknamed BEAM, will be the third orbital prototype developed and flown by privately owned Bigelow Aerospace.

The Las Vegas-based company, founded in 1999 by Budget Suites of America hotel chain owner Robert Bigelow, currently operates two small unmanned experimental habitats called Genesis 1, launched in 2006, and Genesis 2, which followed a year later.

BEAM, about 13 feet long and 10.5 feet in diameter when inflated, is scheduled for launch in mid-2015 aboard a Space Exploration Technologies' Dragon cargo ship, said Mike Gold, director of operations for Bigelow Aerospace.

"It will be the first expandable habitat module ever constructed for human occupancy," Gold said.

A successful test flight on the space station would be a stepping stone for planned Bigelow-staffed orbiting outposts that the company plans to lease to research organizations, businesses and wealthy individuals wishing to vacation in orbit.

Bigelow has invested about $250 million in inflatable habitation modules so far. It has preliminary agreements with seven non-U.S. space and research agencies in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia, Singapore, Japan, Sweden and the United Arab Emirates.

"The value to me personally and to our company is doing a project with NASA," Robert Bigelow said. "This is our first opportunity to do that. We do have other ambitions."

NASA, which will pay Bigelow Aerospace $17.8 million for the BEAM habitat, also is interested in the technology to house crew during future expeditions beyond the space station, a $100 billion research complex that flies about 250 miles above Earth.

"Whether you're going to the surface of the moon or even Mars, the benefits of expandable habitats are critical for any exploration mission," Gold said.

The lightweight, soft-skinned inflatable, made of materials similar to Kevlar, has several advantages over traditional metallic space dwellings. BEAM, for example, weighs about 3,000 pounds (1,361 kg), less than a third of traditional, similarly sized space modules, so it can be launched for a fraction of the cost.

RADIATION EVENTS

It also offers a potentially safer radiation environment than metal structures, which can produce body-piercing secondary heavy particles during solar storms and other cosmic radiation events.

The U.S. space agency studied inflatable space habitats for humans in the 1990s under a NASA program called TransHab. The tests included blasting a model structure with bullet-like projectiles to see how well it would withstand micro meteoroid and orbital debris hits. The material proved space-worthy, though budget and political issues prompted the project's cancellation in 2000.

Bigelow later licensed the technology from NASA and spent millions of dollars more to develop it.

"It's one of our classical roles to advance technology so the private sector can utilize it. In this case, we're going to be able to benefit from it again," said NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver.

BEAM will be attached to the station's Tranquility connecting node and inflated with pressurized air to form a rigid, cylinder-shaped, balloon-like dwelling.

Garver said there are no firm plans for what the station's six live-aboard crew members will do with their spare room.

Initially, NASA and Bigelow are interested in getting information about how the structure withstands radiation and maintains a stable temperature in orbit, and also whether the fabric mildews or becomes a place where contaminants in the station's air collects.

Beyond the test flight, Bigelow's commercial business is dependent on the development of space taxis to fly company personnel and guests into orbit. NASA likewise is looking to the private sector to fly its astronauts to and from the space station, a service now solely provided by Russia at a cost of more than $60 million per person.

NASA is investing in three companies - Boeing Co, Space Exploration Technologies, also known as SpaceX, and Sierra Nevada Corp - in hopes of having at least one space transportation system ready to fly before the end of 2017. The space station, a project of 15 nations, currently is funded through 2020.

Bigelow has agreements with Boeing and SpaceX for launch services, if and when they become available. SpaceX plans a test launch with company astronauts before the end of 2015, and Boeing's first piloted flight is pegged for 2016.

(Editing by Tom Brown, Dan Grebler, Kevin Gray and David Gregorio)

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KADUNA, Nigeria | Thu Jan 3, 2013 8:26am EST

KADUNA, Nigeria (Reuters) - Gunmen have killed four people and burned down a police station in northeast Adamawa state, the police said on Thursday, the latest such attack in a region where Islamist sect Boko Haram has its stronghold.

A soldier, a policeman, a civilian and her grandchild were killed by unknown gunmen and a local government office was destroyed in the town of Song, near the border with Cameroon, Adamawa police spokesman Mohammed Ibrahim told Reuters. He said it happened around midnight on Wednesday.

At least 37 people have now died in Nigeria's northeast in the last 10 days alone in violence presumed to be linked to Islamist militancy, the biggest threat to stability in Africa's main oil exporter.

There was a similar attack in another town in Adamawa last week when police said one person was killed, although local media reports, quoting eye-witnesses, said 20 died.

Authorities in the northeast have in the past played down their own casualties in fighting with Boko Haram.

The sect, which is loosely based on the Afghan Taliban, killed hundreds last year in a campaign to impose sharia, or Islamic law. Nigeria's more than 160 million people are split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims.

Boko Haram's violence remains focused mostly on security forces in the northeast, although its attacks have spread across the north and to the capital Abuja.

President Goodluck Jonathan has been unable to stop the rebellion despite waves of military offensives in the northeast and other parts of northern and central Nigeria where Boko Haram has a strong presence.

Jonathan said this week that most suspects behind major bombings in Nigeria had been arrested and attacks by what he called "terrorists" would be over soon.

Around 3,000 people have been killed in violence linked to Boko Haram since the group's uprising in 2009, human rights groups say.

(Reporting by Isaac Abrak; Writing by Joe Brock; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

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The Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft carrying the International Space Station (ISS) crew of U.S. astronaut Thomas Marshburn, Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko and Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield blasts off from its launch pad at the Baikonur cosmodrome December 19, 2012.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Fri Dec 21, 2012 3:42pm EST

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying a multinational crew of three arrived at the International Space Station on Friday, setting the stage for a Canadian for the first time to take command of the orbital research base.

The spacecraft carrying Chris Hadfield from the Canadian Space Agency, NASA's Tom Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko blasted off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome on Wednesday and parked at the station's Rassvet docking module at 9:09 a.m. EST as the ships sailed 255 miles above northern Kazakhstan.

"The Soyuz sleigh has pulled into port at the International Space Station with a holiday gift of three new crewmembers," said NASA mission commentator Rob Navias.

The trio joined station commander Kevin Ford and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeni Tarelkin, who are two months into a planned six-month mission.

Ford is due to turn over command of the $100 billion research complex, a project of 15 nations, in mid-March to Hadfield, who will become the first Canadian to lead a space expedition.

"This is a big event for me personally," Hadfield said in a preflight interview. "It takes a lot of work, a lot of focus. It's something that I can look back on as an accomplishment and a threshold of my life."

Command of the station, which has been continuously occupied since November 2000, typically rotates between an American and a Russian crewmember.

In 2009, Belgian astronaut Frank De Winne broke that cycle to become the first European Space Agency commander. Japan's Koichi Wakata is training to lead the Expedition 39 crew in March 2014.

All three of the station's new residents have made previous spaceflights. Hadfield, 53, is a veteran of two space shuttle missions. Marshburn, 52, has one previous shuttle mission and Roman Romanenko, 41, a second-generation cosmonaut, served as a flight engineer aboard the space station in 2009.

The station crew will have some time off to celebrate several winter holidays in orbit - Christmas, the New Year and then Orthodox Christmas - before tackling a list of about 150 science experiments and station maintenance, including two spacewalks.

Among the studies will be medical research into how the human cardiovascular system changes in microgravity.

"When you live in an environment like that, the heart actually shrinks. Your blood vessel response changes. It actually sets us up to cardiovascular problems," Hadfield said. "We have a sequence of experiments that's taking blood samples and monitoring our body while we're exercising and doing different things to try and understand what's going on with our cardiovascular system," he said.

The research is expected to help doctors unravel the aging process on Earth, which is similar in many respects to what happens to the human body in weightlessness.

In addition to medical research, the space station serves as a laboratory for fluid physics and other microgravity sciences, a platform for several astronomical observatories and a testbed for robotics and other technologies.

(Edited by David Adams and Leslie Gevirtz)

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1 of 19. The Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft carrying the International Space Station (ISS) crew of U.S. astronaut Thomas Marshburn, Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko and Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield blasts off from its launch pad at the Baikonur cosmodrome December 19, 2012.

ALMATY | Wed Dec 19, 2012 12:24pm EST

ALMATY (Reuters) - A Soyuz spacecraft carrying a Russian, an American and a Canadian blasted off on Wednesday to the International Space Station (ISS), where the men are to spend half a year in orbit.

The Russian-built Soyuz TMA-07M lifted off on time, at 1212 GMT, from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

On the crew's two-day trip to the ISS, Canadian Chris Hadfield is joined by U.S. astronaut Tom Mashburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko.

They will join U.S. astronaut Kevin Ford and Russians Oleg Novitsky and Yevgeny Tarelkin, who have been manning the $100-billion, 15-nation research complex since October.

(Reporting by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Alison Williams)

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