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Television cameras aboard the international space station are showing dramatic views of record-setting Hurricane Wilma. The video captured from 222 miles above the storm is airing on the NASA TV Video File segment.

Aboard the space station, Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev are quickly acclimating themselves to their new home in space, conducting experiments and performing routine maintenance. Scheduled activities this week for the crew include renal stone experiment data collection and the replacement of a trajectory control system unit panel in the Pirs Docking Compartment.

On Tuesday, flight controllers initiated the first of two 11-minute, 40-second engine firings from a docked Progress spacecraft to increase the station's altitude by about 8 statute miles. Less than two minutes after the first firing began, the reboost was aborted due to a problem with the Progress' thrusters. The second burn was not attempted. Russian flight controllers are investigating the situation, and the aborted reboost will have no impacts on station operations.

Mission Control in Houston took advantage of the station's cameras to capture video of Hurricane Wilma as it churns through the Caribbean. The National Hurricane Center warns that Wilma is a potentially "catastrophic" hurricane.

The station's cameras viewed the storm at about 9:22 a.m. EDT, as the orbiting laboratory passed directly over the hurricane's eye. The once-category five (now four) storm was located in the Caribbean Sea, 340 miles southeast of Cozumel, Mexico. Station cameras are expected to obtain additional video during passes above the storm.

NASA TV is available on the Web and on an MPEG-2 digital signal accessed via satellite AMC-6, at 72 degrees west longitude, transponder 17C, 4040 MHz, vertical polarization.

FMI: www.nasa.gov/ntv, www.nasa.gov/hurricane, www.nasa.gov/station