Hadfield takes command of international space station

A Canadian has taken charge of the International Space Station for the first time in the history of the giant orbiting space lab.

American Cmdr. Kevin Ford transferred command to space veteran Chris Hadfield, 53, who was born in Sarnia and raised in Milton.

Hadfield is only the second international astronaut to take the reins of the station, Ford said, adding he was “well-deserving of the honour.”

“It’s a huge honour and privilege for me,” Hadfield said during the command handover ceremony aboard the ISS. “Thanks you very much for giving me the keys to the family car. We’re going to put some miles on it but we’ll bring it back in good shape.”

Hadfield is almost three months into his five-month space visit.

Since his arrival on Dec. 21, 2012, the Canadian space veteran has been taking spectacular photos of the world beneath him and posting them on Twitter. Hadfield’s colourful, detailed images have received international attention and helped him gain over 500,000 Twitter followers.

Another recent photo showed an apple with Velcro on the bottom which, Hadfield explained, allowed him to set it down between bites.

The Queen sent her best wishes only hours before Hadfield took over the ISS.

Former Canadian astronaut Bob Thirsk is confident his old colleague will do a good job. Thirsk spent six months on the station in 2009 — a record stay for a Canadian. One of Canada’s first six original astronauts, he retired in August 2012.

“Chris Hadfield is an astronaut’s astronaut,” Thirsk told The Canadian Press in a recent interview. “He’s got all the skills, the knowledge and the personality to excel as commander.”

Thirsk also pointed out that Canada is the smallest partner among the five agencies involved in the space station program.

“It makes a remarkable statement about the nature of this partnership when the smallest country has the opportunity to assume one of the more critical roles,” he said.

Aside from Hadfield, the only other space station commander who wasn’t either American or Russian was Frank De Winne of Belgium, who was in charge while Thirsk was spacebound. De Winne is a member of the European Space Agency.

Thirsk credited De Winne with creating a harmonious atmosphere.

He said Hadfield has to be ready for anything.

“In the event of an emergency when the station might lose communications with mission control on the ground, it’ll be Chris who must take directive action and keep the crew and the station safe,” he added.

As recently as Feb. 19, there was a temporary loss of communication between the space station and the ground, which lasted for several hours.

Recalling his own experience, Thirsk had some advice for Hadfield during his stint as station commander: “Keep ’em laughing.”

“Once a week, we would have these conferences with the main managers of the ground support team and we would spend half of the time just laughing,” he said.

“You know things are going well when that happens.”

Hadfield is on his third space mission.

His first trip was an eight-day mission in November 1995, when he visited the Russian Space Station Mir. His second was a visit to the ISS in April 2001, when he performed two space walks during an 11-day voyage.

With files from CityNews.ca staff

[View the story “Best thing Hadfield has done for space travel” on Storify]