SUBMITTED BY ARTHUR N1ORC - AMSAT A/C#31468
*Soyuz Move Caps Busy Week Aboard Space Station*
The Expedition 15 crew members enjoyed a light-duty day Friday aboard the International Space Station after a busy week culminating in the relocation of their Soyuz spacecraft on Thursday.
The Zarya module's starboard solar array wing was retracted Friday morning, with the retraction of the port solar array planned for Saturday. The Zarya arrays must be completely retracted to avoid contact with the station's radiators. The starboard radiators will be deployed during STS-120 space shuttle mission in October, followed by the port radiators after the shuttle departs.
The crew moved the Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft on Thursday to free up the Zarya nadir, or Earth-facing, port for the arrival of Expedition 16 on Oct. 12. After the Soyuz undocked at 3:20 p.m. EDT, Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov piloted the spacecraft 80 feet for a 27-minute trip to the aft docking port of the Zvezda service module.
+ Read more about the Soyuz move http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition15/soyuzmove.html
On Monday afternoon, the Zvezda service module's engines were fired for about two minutes to raise the space station's altitude an average of about 5.3 nautical miles. This brings the station into the correct position for the upcoming Soyuz TMA-11 and space shuttle Discovery dockings in October.
+ View crew daily timelines http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/timelines/index.html + Read more about Expedition 15 http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition15/index.html + Read more about Expedition 16 http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition16/index.html