Space station crew exchanges season's greetings with Earth

Washington, Dec 13 (ANI): The crew of the International Space Station (ISS) has beamed down season's greetings to the people of Earth, that is airing on NASA Television.

The public can return the extraterrestrial good will and send greetings to the crew by visiting the website http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/postcard.

The e-mailed greetings can be sent through Jan. 5, 2009.

Last year, thousands of messages were sent to the Expedition 16 crew from throughout the world.

The current station crew, Expedition 18 Commander Mike Fincke and Flight Engineers Sandra Magnus and Yury Lonchakov, will celebrate this holiday season 220 miles above Earth.

Fincke and Lonchakov have been on the station since October 14, and Magnus joined the crew on November 16.

The main focus of their mission is to prepare the station to house six crew members for long-duration missions beginning in May 2009.

The station crew's greetings are airing on NASA TV as part of the daily Video File.

The video also will be broadcast in high definition on the NASA TV HD channel from December 15-17. (ANI)