Expedition 14 Crew Takes Short Soyuz Trip Outside ISS

The three-astronaut crew of the International Space Station (ISS) took a short trip around the orbital block Tuesday to move a Russian lifeboat to a new parking spot.

ISS Expedition 14 commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and flight engineers Mikhail Tyurin and Thomas Reiter spent 20 minutes flying their Soyuz TMA-9 spacecraft between docking ports to clear a berth for an upcoming cargo ship expected later this month.

"Everything is clean, everything is fine," said Tyurin, a veteran Russian cosmonaut serving as Soyuz commander, during the short trip.

The Soyuz relocation began at 3:14 p.m. EDT (1914 GMT), when the Expedition 14 astronauts cast off from the aft docking port of the station's Russian-built Zvezda service module as both spacecraft flew 222 statute miles (357 kilometers) over the southern tip of South America. The three astronauts wore their Russian Sokol spacesuits during the brief spaceflight.

Tyurin deftly guided the Soyuz to a new Earth-facing berth on the space station's Zarya control module, where it docked at 3:34 p.m. EDT (1934 GMT) as the spacecraft passed over the west coast of Africa.

"It's a very interesting sound actually," said Tyurin, a representing Russia's Federal Space Agency, during the flight. "When the thruster's fire, it's almost as if somebody's taking a drum stick and banging it on the hull a bit."

Today's Soyuz relocation frees the aft-facing Zvezda docking port for the expected Oct. 26 arrival of Progress 23, an unmanned Russian cargo ship set to ferry about 4,800 pounds (2,177 kilograms) of food, fuel and supplies to the ISS, NASA commentator Rob Navias said.

Progress 23 is slated to launch at 9:40 a.m. EDT (1340 GMT) on Oct. 23 from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan in Central Asia and take about three days - one day longer than typical resupply flights - to reach the ISS due to the station's orbital position, Navias added. Docking is set for 10:36 a.m. EDT (1436 GMT) on Oct. 26.

The ISS is also home to an older Russian cargo ship - Progress 22 - which arrived at the stations' Pirs docking port on June 26.

Today marked the 23^rd day of the Expedition 14 mission for Lopez-Alegria - a NASA astronaut - and Tyurin, but the 98^th day in orbit for the Reiter, who represents the European Space Agency. Reiter arrived at the ISS on July 6 and served with the station's Expedition 13 crew before joining his new crewmates.

With their Soyuz TMA-9 spacecraft now parked at its Zarya port - where it will stay until its planned return to Earth in March 2007 - the Expedition 14 astronauts were expected to perform a two-hour series of leak checks before once more opening hatches to the ISS. They are expected to reenter the station by about 6:00 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT) and go to sleep by 11:00 p.m. EDT (0300 Oct. 11 GMT), ending a long day that began with crew wake-up at 4:30 a.m. EDT (0830 GMT), NASA officials said.

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