MOSCOW. Dec 27 (Interfax-AVN) - The International Space Station will see 2014 15 time and make 14 returns to 2013 before it definitively settles in the new year, a space industry source said.
"Altogether the [ISS crew] will be able to see the New Year in 15 times. It is this number of times that the ISS will cross the border between December 31, 2013, and January 1, 2014," the source told Interfax.
The station will make its first visit to 2014 at 1208 GMT on December 31. At that point it will be between Australia and New Zealand. It will finally enter into 2014 at 0951 on GMT on January 1, when it passes over the Pacific, east of New Zealand.
When the Kremlin's main clock chimes for the new year, the ISS will be over the Pacific. At 0000 GMT on January 1, it will be over the Atlantic, south of Africa. When the new year starts in Houston, Texas, the site of the NASA mission control center - at 0600 GMT on January 1 - The ISS will be between Australia and South America.
The ISS's current crew are Russians Oleg Kotov, Sergey Ryazansky and Mikhail Tyurin, Americans Michael Hopkins and Rick Mastracchio, and Japanese Koichi Wakata.