NASA Astronaut Tweets From Space – For Real This Time

Astronauts aboard the ISS received a special software upgrade earlier this week, according to a NASA statement released moments ago: personal access to the Internet and the World Wide Web via the “ultimate wireless connection”.

This personal Web access, called the Crew Support LAN, takes advantage of existing communication links to and from the station and gives astronauts the ability to browse and use the Web. The system basically provides astronauts with direct private communications.

From the release:

During periods when the station is actively communicating with the ground using high-speed Ku-band communications, the crew will have remote access to the Internet via a ground computer. The crew will view the desktop of the ground computer using an onboard laptop and interact remotely with their keyboard touchpad.

Flight Engineer T.J. Creamer made first use of the new system Friday, when he posted the first unassisted update to his Twitter account from the space station.

Previous tweets from space had to be e-mailed to the ground where support personnel posted them to the astronauts’ Twitter accounts.

What’s the coolest place (pun intented) you’ve ever tweeted from?