NASA's Expedition 19 to the International Space Station

We're tremendously excited and rather* proud of our link with NASA, which, as of October 2008, is formalised by an International Space Act Agreement. The partnership will do and promote global climate and biodiversity science by correlating time-stamped images from the International Space Station with biological samples taken by the new Beagle's science crew from ocean surface water.

But 'images from the International Space Station' don't just take themselves. They are taken by astronauts aboard, and it is in fact a future ISS astronaut Michael Barratt who first approached The Beagle Project with the idea for the collaboration. And so it is with even more great excitement and pride that we count down to Mike's launch into space for a six-month stay aboard the ISS, scheduled for 25th March this year, aboard the Russian Soyuz TMA-14. Here is Mike (2nd from left) with the rest of the Expedition 19 crew.

Expedition 19 crew from the left: Commander Gennady Padalka and flight engineers Michael Barratt, Koichi Wakata and Timothy Kopra. Padalka is a cosmonaut representing Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency. Wakata is an astronaut representing the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Image credit: NASA

We'll be making a big hoo-ha about the launch and will provide links to NASA images, articles and video (including hopefully live feed of the launch) right here so stay tuned.

*grossest understatement in the history of understatements