Two rookie
cosmonauts and South Korea's first spaceflyer are poised to ride a Russian
rocket into orbit early Tuesday on a mission to the International Space Station
(ISS).
The Soyuz
TMA-12 spacecraft carrying cosmonauts Sergei Volkov, Oleg Kononenko and South
Korean engineer So-Yeon Yi is set to lift off atop a Russian booster at 7:16
a.m. EDT (1116 GMT) from the Central Asian spaceport of Baikonur Cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan. The spaceflyers are due to dock at the station on Thursday during a
10-day
crew change.
"Actually,
we are ready for all the scheduled events of our flight," said Volkov, who is the
first
second-generation spaceflyer to launch and will command the station's
Expedition 17 mission, in an interview.
Volkov and
Kononenko, an ISS flight engineer, plan to spend six months aboard the space
station during their mission, which will feature the addition of a tour
bus-sized Japanese laboratory and at least one spacewalk. The cosmonauts will relieve
the station's current core crew - Expedition
16 commander Peggy Whitson of NASA and Russian flight engineer Yuri
Malenchenko - and join their third crewmate, U.S. astronaut Garrett Reisman,
who is already aboard the station.
Yi, South
Korea's first astronaut, is flying a 10-day spaceflight under a commercial
agreement between her country and Russia's Federal Space Agency. She will join
Whitson and Malenchenko when they return to Earth on April 19.
Like father, like son
For Volkov,
35, rockets and space stations are all in the family. His father is Alexander
Volkov, 59, a veteran cosmonaut who spent 391 days in space during three
spaceflights, one to Russia's Salyut 7 station and two to the subsequent Mir
Space Station, during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
"I think I'm
[a] cosmonaut of another generation," Volkov said in a NASA interview. "For me,
spaceflights were sort of a common thing."
It wasn't
until attending summer camp in his youth, when those around him peppered him
about his father - who was named a Hero of the Soviet Union and awarded the
Order of Lenin - that he realized there might be more to life as a cosmonaut.
Born in Chuguyev
in the Kharkov region of Ukraine, the younger Volkov is married to wife Natalia
and has a seven-year-old son. Unlike some other cosmonauts, he grew up in Star
City - home of Russia's Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center - and served as a
pilot and engineer in the Russian Air Force before qualifying as a test
cosmonaut in 1999.
"To be a
cosmonaut was my personal decision," Volkov said, adding that his father was
unaware of the fact until he was told. Like his father, Volkov trained for
long-duration spaceflights and was named Soyuz and Expedition 17 commander in
2006.
Volkov has
since discussed his coming spaceflight with his father, who gave him tips for
life in Earth orbit and on the finer points of spacewalking.
"For me
personally, to be a second generation astronaut it's pretty hard and there's a
lot of pressure," Volkov said, adding that he expects comparisons between his
first spaceflight and his father's legacy. "My goal is to be at least as [good]
as my father."
A born
cosmonaut
Unlike his
commander, Kononenko has no family ties with Russia's cosmonaut corps, but he
did get hooked on spaceflight early.
"It seems
to me that I was born thinking that I must become a cosmonaut," Kononenko, 43,
said in a NASA interview. "[A]s far back as I can remember myself, I always
wanted to become a cosmonaut."
Born in
Chardzhow, Turkmenistan, Kononenko is married to wife Tatiana and has 4 1/2-year-old
twins, Alisa and Andrey. He joined Russian Space Agency's Central Specialized
Design Bureau as a mechanical engineer in 1988, worked his way up to a lead
design engineer position and was selected for cosmonaut training in 1996.
Kononenko
said he is looking forward to the frenetic pace of traffic at the ISS during
Expedition 17, which includes a brief Soyuz flight to swap docking ports, the
arrival of several cargo ships, a NASA shuttle and Japanese laboratory, and the
departure of Europe's
cargo ship Jules Verne.
"I think
what I am looking forward to the most is acquiring that experience that will
make part of all the real cosmonauts," he said in an interview, adding that it's
time to put his rigorous training into practice. "I'm looking forward to my
next flight after this, and perhaps even to future missions to the moon and on
to Mars."
South
Korea's first in space
Originally
selected as South Korea's backup astronaut, Yi moved
to the prime crew last month when Russia pulled her crewmate San Ko, 31,
from flight status due to reading rule violations. Ko, an artificial
intelligence expert, is now serving as her backup, Russian spaceflight
officials have said.
According
to press reports, Yi, 29, hails from Kwangju and is a mechanical engineer by
training, with bachelor's and master's degrees in the field, as well as a Ph.D.
in bioengineering from the state-run Korea Advanced Institute for Science and
Technology. She and Ko joined the Korea Aerospace Research Institute once they
were selected from a field of 36,000 applicants to become their nation's first
astronaut.
Yi's 10-day
spaceflight stems from a reported $25 million deal between South Korea and
Russia. She is expected to perform 14 experiments aboard the space station that
include cell and crystal growth studies, as well as educational events.
In a March
19 press briefing with reporters in Star City, Russia, Yi reportedly said that
she had more than pure science in store for her crewmates aboard the ISS. She
will also take traditional Korean food for the station astronauts and may even
sing, the Associated Press reported.
Russia's Interfax
News Agency reported that Yi said she also hoped to promote interest in
science among her nation's youth, as well as help ease long-standing tensions
between North and South Korea.
"As a citizen of my
country, as the first Korean astronaut, I will promote the development of
relations between our two countries, if anything depends on me," Interfax
quoted Yi as saying.
NASA will broadcast the
launch of Expedition 17 toward the ISS live on NASA TV. Click here for SPACE.com's NASA TV feed
and live ISS mission updates.
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