Russian-US Crew Prepares For Space Station Mission

STATION NEWS

At 5:00 a.m., Moscow Time, on October 12, the transporter, with the Soyuz-FG launch vehicle and the Soyuz TMA-5 transport spacecraft, left the Assembly and Testing Facility, to be ereceted at the launch pad for final pre-launch processing. Photo credit: S.P.Korolev RSC Energia.

Baikonur, Kazakhstan (AFP) Oct 12, 2004
A Russian-US crew will blast off from here Thursday bound for the orbiting international space station on a six-month mission to conduct a series of scientific experiments.

The Soyuz TMA-5 spacecraft will carry Leroy Chiao of the United States and Russia's Salizhan Sharipov and Yury Shargin to replace Gennady Padalka, from Russia, and American Michael Fincke who have been in orbit since April.

While Chiao and Sharipov will remain on the space station until April 2005 as the 10th crew since the historic launch of the first module in 1998, Shargin will spend only 10 days in orbit during the relief of the crews.

The cosmonauts, after training for several months at the Star City near Moscow, are due to carry out 41 scientific, medical, biological and technical experiments.

One experiment is to study proteins that could be used to create a vaccine against AIDS, Sharipov said.

During the mission, the crew is scheduled to leave the station twice, once in December and once in January, to continue preparations for the docking of a new European cargo spacecraft scheduled for next year.

The mission of Shargin - an officer in the Russian defence ministry - on the ISS space station was described by the commander of Russia's space forces in July as "an interesting programme that will be useful to the space forces and to the whole country."

Asked about the activities of Shargin on the ISS, Sharipov said they would focus on "ecological monitoring," stressing that the space station was a "civilian" station where military experiments are banned.

The launch of Soyuz TMA-5 was originally scheduled for October 9 but was postponed due to technical difficulties with the craft's docking system.

Russia's Federal Space Agency reported earlier this month that the technical problems had since been solved.

All ISS crew currently travel to the station on Russian vessels. Flights of the US space shuttle were suspended following the disintegration on reentry of the shuttle Columbia in February 2003, but expected to resume next year.

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STATION NEWS

Next Station Crew to Launch Oct. 13

Houston TX (SPX) Oct 11, 2004
The 10th crew of the International Space Station is scheduled to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Oct. 13 at 11:06 p.m. EDT for a six-month stay aboard the orbiting laboratory.