Brazil's
first astronaut and a fresh International Space Station (ISS) crew are poised
to launch into orbit atop a Russian-built rocket today on a two-day trip to the
orbital laboratory.
NASA will provide live coverage of the ISS Expedition 13 launch beginning at 8:45 p.m. EST. Click here. |
Brazilian
Air Force Col. Marcos
Pontes, his nation's first astronaut set to fly, and the 13th
space station crew will rocket skyward aboard their Soyuz TMA-8 spacecraft tonight
at about 9:30 p.m. EST (0230 March 30 GMT) from a launch pad at Baikonur
Cosmodrome in Central Asia's Kazakhstan.
Expedition
13 commander Pavel Vinogradov, of Russia's Federal Space Agency, and flight
engineer Jeffrey Williams, a NASA astronaut, will accompany Pontes into orbit. The
astronauts will launch from the same pad used to loft cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on
his historic first manned spaceflight on April 12, 1961.
"This
vehicle is in the ideal condition," Vinogradov said after an inspection of the
Soyuz TMA-8 spacecraft and its Soyuz booster earlier this week. "We are ready
for launch."
The
Expedition 13 crew will relieve the space station's current caretakers, Expedition
12 commander Bill McArthur and flight engineer Valery Tokarev, who have
lived aboard the 200-ton station since October
2005.
"I'm
looking forward to my six months onboard the station," Williams said after the
spacecraft inspection.
Vinogradov
and Williams expect to conduct at least two spacewalks during their mission,
and hope to host up to two NASA space shuttle crews while in charge of the
orbital lab.
The Discovery
orbiter and its STS-121
astronaut crew are currently scheduled to arrive at the ISS in
July, bringing with them European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut
Thomas Reiter to join Expedition 13 as a third crewmember. NASA's STS-115
ISS construction mission is also slated to launch toward the station aboard the
Atlantis orbiter in late August.
Pontes and
the Expedition 13 crew will spend about two days chasing the ISS before docking
at the Earth-facing berth on its Russian-built Zarya control module. Docking is
currently scheduled for March 31 at 11:19 p.m. EST (0419 April 1 GMT), NASA
officials said.
The joint
space station crews will spend about eight days transferring control of the ISS
over to the Expedition 13 astronauts.
During that
time, Pontes - who began training for a NASA shuttle flight in 1998 only to secure
an ISS-bound seat aboard a Soyuz last year - will conduct a series of
nanotechnology studies, as well as experiments for students in his native
country as part of his Centennial Mission, which celebrates the 100-year
anniversary of the first heavier-than-air flight by Brazilian aviator Alberto
Santo-Dumont in 1906.
"Being part
of this crew, especially this year in 2006, is very important," Pontes said
during a preflight press conference.
Pontes will
return to Earth with the Expedition 12 crew on April 8, when he, McArthur and
Tokarev are due to step inside the Soyuz TMA-7 now
docked at the aft end of the station's Zvezda module. The three astronauts
are expected to land on the steppes of Kazakhstan at about 7:46 p.m. EDT (2346
GMT) that day.
NASA will
provide live launch coverage for the Expedition 13/Pontes space shot beginning
at 8:45 p.m. EST (0145 March 30 GMT).
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