Two
astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) are spending their last
weeks in orbit as they await the upcoming launch of their relief crew and one
paying space tourist.
ISS
Expedition 11 commander Sergei Krikalev and flight engineer John Phillips are
set to return to Earth on Oct. 10 after handing control over to their
replacements - Expedition 12's
Bill McArthur and Valery Tokarev. The landing will end a six-month mission that
saw one spacewalk, a new spaceflight record and the first NASA shuttle flight to the ISS since
November 2002.
"This crew
has done very well," said James Locke, NASA's lead flight surgeon for
Expedition 11, during a press briefing at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in
Houston, Texas. "In some cases, [ISS astronauts] are actually in better shape than
when they left, and I suspect that's the case here."
In orbit, astronauts
sometimes have more time to exercise, which prevents excessive bone and muscle
loss in microgravity, than during flight training, Locke said.
Meanwhile,
a fresh Soyuz
TMA-7 spacecraft is just over one day away from launching the Expedition 12
crew into space with U.S. scientist Gregory
Olsen, a fare-paying participant who is paying about $20 million for the
orbital ride. The space-bound trio will launch on Sept. 30 at 11:54 p.m. EDT
(0354 Oct. 1) GMT.
A job
well done
NASA ISS
officials said that Krikalev and Phillips have had a great mission despite some
uncertainty
early in the flight as to when Discovery would arrive at the station.
Slated
to arrive in mid-May - about one month after Krikalev and Phillips arrived
at the space station - Discovery docked
at the ISS in late July, delivering six tons of vital spare parts, supplies and
science equipment to the orbital platform.
Discovery's
ISS flight marked NASA's first shuttle flight since the 2003 loss of Columbia, which disintegrated
during reentry on Feb. 1, 2003, killing its crew. Wing damage from external
tank foam debris at launch was cited as the accident's cause.
Krikalev
and Phillips also anticipated a second
shuttle flight to the ISS during their mission - STS-121 aboard Atlantis -
which was slated to deliver more supplies and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Reiter
to the ISS. Reiter's arrival would have brought the ISS back up to a
three-person crew complement, but was delayed
due launch debris
concerns raised during Discovery's liftoff. He is slated to fly aboard
Discovery - now flying STS-121 - sometime in 2006.
But despite
the delays, Krikalev and Phillips managed to complete all of their planned
science tasks, including the completion of a long-running ultrasound
experiment that tested astronauts' abilities to scan crewmates with guidance
from ground-based scientists, NASA officials said. The experiment will aid remote medicine practices
here on Earth, they added.
"John performed
the first-ever voice-only scan, where the ground couldn't see what he was
seeing," explained ISS program scientist Don Thomas during the briefing. "It
was an extremely difficult thing to do."
Krikalev
and Phillips also conducted one spacewalk
to retrieve experiments on the station's exterior and outfit the laboratory
with antennas to be used by an unmanned European cargo ship expected next year.
Krikalev
continues to set a new record for total time spent in space during his
cosmonaut career after breaking the record on Aug. 16. To date, he has
spent 791 total days and counting in Earth orbit.
Relief
crew awaits launch
While the
Expedition 11 crew prepares for landing, the Expedition 12 crew and Olsen are
counting down toward launch.
McArthur, a
NASA astronaut, will command Expedition 12 with cosmonaut Valery Tokarev of the
Russian Federal Space Agency serving as flight engineer. With the delayed
launch of STS-121 and Reiter - who would have stayed on for Expedition 12 - McArthur
and Tokarev are one astronaut short, forcing increment planners to shuffle the
crew's task plans for the mission.
"The major
challenges we're facing now is crew time," Expedition 12 increment manager Pete
Hasbrook. "We've got a lot do with fewer crew...we're going to revise our
priorities."
McArthur
and Tokarev are scheduled to perform at least one spacewalk in November clad in
U.S. spacesuits, and another in December using Russian Orlan spacesuits,
mission managers said. A third spacewalk in February 2006 may also be performed
depending on time, they added.
Meanwhile,
the two astronauts have 13 primary science programs for their flight, though
some studies - such as the Foot experiment to compare differences in the body's
use of its lower extremities in orbit and on Earth - depends on when the
hardware arrives at the ISS. Some science hardware was slated to arrive with
STS-121, mission managers said.
NASA's
shuttle flight delays also complicated plans for McArthur's return to Earth.
The
astronaut initially planned to
return to Earth aboard a NASA space shuttle in May 2006, after 213 days in
orbit, about one month after Tokarev left the ISS aboard their Soyuz TMA-7
spacecraft. With the launch date of NASA next shuttle far from certain, U.S.
and Russian ISS officials agreed to return McArthur via Soyuz with Tokarev.
"The
current plan shows him coming home on the [Soyuz] in the spring," Hasbrook
said.
Under a
bilateral agreement with Russia, Soyuz TMA-7 is the last Soyuz with a seat
for a NASA astronaut available at no charge, though the space agency would have
been unable to procure more flights due to the Iran Nonproliferation Act of
2000. The act bars the U.S. purchase of Russian human spaceflight hardware so
long as Russia continues to aid Iran's pursuit of nuclear and advanced weapons
technology.
Last week, the
U.S. Senate approved
a bill that would clear NASA to purchase additional Soyuz flights in the
future.
Space
tourist set to fly
Riding up
to the ISS with the Expedition 12 crew Friday is an eager Gregory Olsen, a U.S.
scientist and entrepreneur who is paying $20 million to visit the space station.
Olsen's
trip, brokered with the Russian Federal Space Agency by the space tourism firm Space Adventures, will make him the
third fare-paying visitor to the ISS after the 2002 flight of Mark
Shuttleworth and 2001 launch of Dennis
Tito. Space Adventures also brokered the flights of Shuttleworth and Tito
as well.
"He's free
to go anywhere on the space station that he'd like," said Kirk Shireman, NASA's
ISS operations and integration manager, of Olsen. "He's been trained on the
basic U.S. systems so he'll know what to do in an emergency if he's in the U.S.
segment."
Shireman
added that Olsen will also have access to the station's telephone and e-mail
services as well.
Olsen,
founder of the Princeton, New Jersey-based Sensors Unlimited, Inc., will spend
about one week aboard the ISS before returning to Earth with the Expedition 11
crew. He will perform a trio of experiments
for the European Space Agency (ESA) and observe the Earth, NASA officials said.
Expedition
12 lead flight director Sally Davis said Olsen is trained and ready for his
flight.
"He's
looking very much forward to being onboard station," Davis said, adding that
Olsen is well-versed in alarm and egress procedures. "In a phrase, I'd say he
gets it."
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