Bob Cabana, director of flight crew operations, said he told the astronauts about the accident roughly 24 hours after Columbia disintegrated. “Mostly it was just sharing. I shared with them,” he said. “They’re grieving up there also. And they feel a little isolated. We’re keeping them fully informed.”
The latest crew arrived at the station in November and is scheduled to return to Earth in March. The crew consists of NASA astronauts Ken Bowersox and Don Pettit and Russian Nikolai Budarin.
Cabana said the three were looking forward to a supply ship’s arrival Tuesday.
The unmanned Russian cargo ship was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Sunday. It is delivering fuel, equipment, food and mail.
