Two veteran
astronauts and Malaysia's first spaceflyer are poised for a Wednesday launch
toward the International Space Station (ISS) to begin the busy mission of upgrading
the orbital laboratory.
ISS
Expedition 16 commander
Peggy Whitson - the first woman to lead a station crew - will rocket into
space alongside cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and Malaysian Sheikh Muszaphar
Shukor aboard a Russian-built rocket set to launch at 9:21 a.m. EDT (1321 GMT).
Whitson and her crewmates expect to host three visiting space shuttle crews and
install new ISS modules and laboratory segments during their
six-month mission.
"It's
going to be very aggressive with all the activities going on," Whitson
said of the upcoming mission. "And it is going to be challenging."
Whitson and
Malenchenko will replace the space station's current Expedition 15 commander
Fyodor Yurchikhin and flight engineer Oleg Kotov during a 12-day crew swap.
Shukor will return on Oct. 21 with the Expedition 15 crew, but NASA astronaut
Clayton Anderson – currently serving as an ISS flight engineer – will stay aboard
to join the first stage of Expedition 16.
The
Russian-built Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft ferrying Shukor and the Expedition 16
crew to the ISS will launch from the Central Asian spaceport of Baikonur
Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the same site that launched the world's
first artificial satellite - Sputnik - 50 years ago last week.
"I
believe we have achieved a considerable progress over such a short time
period," Malenchenko said of Sputnik's anniversary. "Currently we
have a continuous presence of humans in space, not only living in space but
performing complicated activities and tasks, performing science experiments,
and it has been going on for years."
First
female ISS commander
Hailing
from her family's farm in Beaconsfield, Iowa, Whitson is no stranger to
long-duration spaceflight.
As a flight
engineer and NASA's first
official ISS science officer, she spent 185 days in orbit during the
Expedition 5 station flight. But Expedition 16 will mark her first in a new
role as the space station's first female commander.
"I
guess it is a milestone and I guess I'm just the person that happened to be in
the right place at the right time," Whitson told reporters. "I certainly
don't want to be the last female commander of the space station, and I don't
anticipate that to be the case."
Whitson,
47, is an accomplished biochemist with a Ph.D. from Rice University and first
joined NASA as a research biochemist in 1989. By 1992, she served as the
project scientist for the joint Shuttle-Mir program between NASA and Russia's
Federal Space Agency. But it wasn't until 1996 that Whitson finally joined
NASA's astronaut corps and achieved a childhood dream.
"It
really didn't become a reality to me to become a goal until I graduated from
high school, which was coincidentally the same year they picked the first set
of female astronauts," Whitson said in a NASA interview. "I think
that was when I decided I wanted to become an astronaut."
Whitson
said that, as a scientist, she is eager to see the deliver of the station's new
Harmony connecting node later this month, which will serve as an anchor for the
European-built Columbus laboratory to arrive in December, Japan's Kibo science
modules to launch next year and others.
"I
think it's a very important stepping stone," Whitson said, adding that the
new modules and equipment will boost the station's ability to perform science.
Cosmonaut's
space return
Like
Whitson, Malenchenko, too, is a veteran long-duration cosmonaut. But becoming a
test cosmonaut and reaching space was not goal the 45-year-old initially
believed to be attainable.
"When
I was growing up almost every boy wanted to be a cosmonaut; every spaceflight
was so unusual and so exciting," Malenchenko said in a NASA interview,
adding that life as a military pilot appeared more realistic. "I was
offered an opportunity to go into the space program and I agreed, and I never
regretted it later."
A native of
Svetlovodsk, Ukraine, Malenchenko attended Kharkov Military Aviation School and
joined Russia's cosmonaut corps in 1987. After graduating from Zhukovsky Air Force
Engineering Academy in 1993, he made his first long-duration spaceflight during
a 126-day mission to Russia's Mir Space Station a year later.
In 2000,
Malenchenko helped prime the ISS for human habitation during NASA's STS-106
shuttle flight, then took charge of the orbital laboratory in 2003 as commander
of the 185-day Expedition 7 mission. During Expedition 16, he will serve as
Soyuz spacecraft commander.
"You
know, I would like to say that I spent a fair amount of time aboard the space
station last time," Malenchenko told reporters. "So in a way, it
feels like you are coming home."
Malenchenko
said he welcomes the frenetic pace of orbital construction ahead for his
Expedition 16 mission. During his Expedition 7, he commanded the station's
first two-person crew after the 2003 Columbia shuttle accident.
"The
situation overall was quite different," Malenchenko said. "Now what
we are seeing is very active development and assembly of the station."
It is
precisely those new assembly tasks that Malenchenko expects to enjoy, though he
does hope to look at his home planet from time to time.
"It's
always beautiful to look at the Earth and to photograph it," he said.
Malaysia's first spaceflyer
An
orthopedic surgeon by training, Shukor will make Malaysian history as the nation's
first astronaut, or "angkasawan," during his 12-day orbital trek.
"To
me, it's not just about going into space, even though I have been dreaming
about going into space since I was 10," Shukor told reporters. "I
hope to come back and promote the space program back in Malaysia."
A
35-year-old native of Kuala Lumpur, Shukor and backup spaceflyer Faiz Khaleed,
a dental surgeon with the Royal Malaysian Armed Forces, were chosen from about
11,000 applicants to become Malaysia's first astronaut.
During his
spaceflight, Shukor plans to perform a series of research and physiological
experiments for Malaysia and the European Space Agency. He is also toting
cultural items and foods to the ISS that he hopes will spur interest in space
and science among Malaysia's youth.
Shukor, who
is Muslim, will also be in orbit during the final days of the holy month of
Ramadan, though Malaysian officials have said he won't have to fast while in
space.
"I promise
to make Malaysia proud," Shukor wrote Tuesday on a Malaysian Web site where he
is chronicling his flight. "That's a promise I intend to keep!"
advertisement
