Twitter has reached the final frontier with astronaut Michael Massimino (aka. Astro_Mike) sending regular tweets live from the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope.
Astro_Mike is one of seven astronauts who left earth on Monday for what will be the last ever mission to the 19-year-old telescope.
The crew took up new scientific instruments, replacement parts for broken cameras and fresh batteries to the space telescope.
Astro_Mike has 276, 265 followers and has been sending Twitter training updates for the last month.
On launch day Astro_Mike tweeted this message just before gearing up to board the Atlantis space shuttle.
“I'm going to put my spacesuit on, next stop: Earth Orbit!!” 6:11am, May 11.
In space the crew face increased danger from space junk due to Hubble’s extremely high orbit 350 miles up.
“From orbit: Getting more accustomed to living in space today and getting ready for our big rendezvous with Hubble.” 7:16am May 13.
Astro_Mike was preparing for his first space walk of the mission when he sent his latest update.
“From orbit: Rendezvous and grapple were great, getting ready for our first spacewalk.” 11pm May14)
The five day mission is costing US$1 billion and NASA hopes to get another five to 10 years of wondrous views from the telescope.
You can follow Astro_Mike throughout his space mission on http://twitter.com/Astro_Mike.
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