SUBMITTED BY ARTHUR N1ORC - AMSAT A/C #31468
*Expedition 14 Readying the Station for Guests*
Image above: Expedition 15 cosmonauts Oleg Kotov (left) and Fyodor Yurchikhin (center) along with spaceflight participant Charles Simonyi share a toast during a ceremonial breakfast at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Facility in Star City. Image credit: NASA
TO VIEW IMAGE GO TO: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html
The Expedition 14 crew had an off-duty day Sunday. This week they continue readying the space station for guests arriving next week. Expedition 15 is set to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1:31 p.m. EDT, April 7. Their Soyuz spacecraft is scheduled to dock at 3:03 p.m. on April 9.
On March 29, Expedition 14 Commander Mike Lopez-Alegria and flight engineers Mikhail Tyurin and Suni Williams boarded their Soyuz TMA-9 spacecraft and undocked it from the Earth-facing port of the station's Zarya module. The craft was docked to the aft port of the Zvezda module. The move was necessary to clear the Zarya port for the arrival of Expedition 15.
Today Lopez-Alegria sets a U.S. record for a single flight of 196 days in space.
+ Read more about the Soyuz relocation http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition14/exp14_soyuz_relocation_032907.html + Final Report of the ISS Independent Safety Task Force (3.7 Mb PDF) http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/170368main_IISTF_Final_Report_508.pdf + Read more about Expedition 14 http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition14/index.html + Read more about Expedition 15 http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition15/index.html + View Crew's Daily Timelines http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/timelines/index.html