NASA
named a three-astronaut team as the next crew of the International Space Station (ISS), a trio that will launch toward the orbital laboratory in stages later this year.
Veteran NASA
shuttle astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria will command the six-month Expedition
14 mission, with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin serving as flight engineer.
A third
Expedition 14 crewmember, NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, is expected to join Lopez-Alegria
and Tyurin - who will ride a Russian-built Soyuz spacecraft to the ISS in
September - during the STS-116 shuttle flight currently scheduled for December
2006.
The Expedition
14 mission will mark the second three-person astronaut team to visit the ISS
since the 2003 Columbia
accident forced a reduction in
crew size due to the lack of shuttle flights that followed.
After three years
of two-person crews, the current Expedition
13 crew is expected to return to the original three-astronaut plan with the
arrival of European Space Agency astronaut Thomas
Reiter during NASA's planned STS-121
shuttle flight slated to fly no
earlier than July 1. Reiter will join the Expedition 14 crew until Williams arrives, NASA said.
Selected to
join NASA's astronaut corps in 1992, Lopez-Alegria has served aboard three shuttle
flights beginning with Columbia's STS-73 mission in 1995. During 2000's STS-92
mission aboard Discovery and the STS-113
flight aboard Endeavour in 2002, Lopez-Alegria aided in the construction of
the ISS and staged five spacewalks during those two flights.
A captain
in the U.S. Navy, Lopez-Alegria has logged more than 42 days in Earth orbit and
about 34 hours of spacewalking time. During Expedition 14, he will also serve
as NASA's science officer throughout the mission.
Like
Lopez-Alegria, Tyurin is no stranger to spaceflight.
A cosmonaut
since 1993 with Russia's Federal Space Agency, Tyurin served as flight engineer
during the third ISS mission - Expedition
3 - which launched
toward the orbital platform in August 2001 during NASA's STS-105
mission aboard Discovery. Tyurin spent 125 in orbit before returning
with NASA's STS-108
shuttle crew aboard Endeavour in December 2001.
Unlike her
Expedition 14 crewmates, Williams is making her first spaceflight.
A commander
in the U.S. Navy, where she's served as a naval aviator and flight instructor, Williams
joined NASA's astronaut corps in 1998. She has served as a liaison in Moscow to
support the Expedition 1 mission - the first long-duration ISS spaceflight -
and supported station robotics work. Williams has logged over 2,770 flight
hours in 30 different types of aircraft throughout her naval and astronaut
career.
The
Expedition 14 crew is expected to relieve the space station's current tenants -
Expedition 13 commander Pavel Vinogradov, flight engineer Jeffrey Williams -
who arrived at the orbital laboratory on April 1.
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