Twittering mad: Massimino pictured outside the shuttle on a previous mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.
Credit: NASA
WASHINGTON DC: NASA, which used Twitter to send updates about the Mars Phoenix Lander program, is turning to the micro-blogging service again.
The U.S. space agency announced on Monday that astronaut Mike Massimino would be using Twitter to provide a behind-the-scenes look at his training for an upcoming Space Shuttle mission.
Massimino is to be a mission specialist and spacewalker during the shuttle Atlantis mission due to launch on 12 May to service the Hubble Space Telescope.
"I feel a need for speed!"
He will be firing off 140-character-or-less messages at @Astro_Mike. You can read his "tweets" on the web at http://twitter.com/Astro_Mike.
Tweets so far include: "at the gym, pumping iron, getting strong for space", "in a shuttle mockup with our pilot, Ray Jay, learning how to record our space shuttle landing video out the window of the shuttle" and "getting ready to fly home in a T-38, I feel a need for speed!"
NASA did not say whether the astronaut would continue tweeting from space.
NASA's Twitter feed on the Phoenix Lander program earned it praise and more than 38,000 people had signed up to receive "tweets" from Mars by the time the mission ended in November 2008.
