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She's the Station Commander

Space is still a great place for firsts. This week, a rocket blasted off from a launching pad in Kazakhstan, in Central Asia. The craft carried an American, a Russian and a Malaysian to the International Space Station (ISS). The American, Peggy Whitson, is the station's first woman commander. This is Whitson's second trip to the ISS. In 2002, she spent six months aboard the station, where she conducted 21 experiments and took a four-hour spacewalk.

The ISS is a joint project between the space agencies of several countries. Since the first module, or section, was put into orbit in 1998, the station has circled the Earth more than 50,000 times.

This mission includes another milestone. Dr. Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor is the first Malaysian in space. Shukor brought special foods with him to celebrate the end of the Muslim holiday Ramadan.

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