An American astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut are preparing
to blast off from their home planet Sunday to fly to the International Space
Station next week.
Expedition 18 commander Michael Fincke and flight engineer
Yury Lonchakov, both veteran spaceflyers, are due to launch
Oct. 12 aboard a Russian Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft from the Baikonur
Cosmodrome spaceport in the Central Asian country of Kazakhstan. They will be
joined on the journey by American space tourist Richard Garriott.
Fincke and Lonchakov both plan to stay aboard the orbiting outpost
for about six months and help outfit the lab to host
six-person crews, effectively doubling the size of the three-member teams
it currently houses.
They will join NASA astronaut Greg Chamitoff, currently
working aboard the space station as part of Expedition 17, who will serve as an
Expedition 18 flight engineer. Later, Chamitoff is set to switch spots with
American astronaut Sandy Magnus, due to arrive at the station aboard the space
shuttle Endeavour's STS-126 mission in November. Next year, Magnus is slated to
swap places with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi
Wakata, who will fly to the station on the space shuttle Discovery's STS-119
mission in February 2009.
An astronaut with a calling
A colonel in the U.S. Air Force, Fincke,
41, grew up in Emsworth, Pa., and holds masters degrees in
aeronautics and astronautics, as well as in planetary geology. He was selected
as a NASA astronaut candidate in 1996.
"Some people refer to it as
a calling, a vocation," Fincke said in a NASA interview. "And that
was it. As soon as I saw astronauts, my senior colleagues walking on the moon,
flying aboard Skylab, the early shuttle missions, I just knew that that's what
I wanted to do, and I was very fortunate to have that opportunity."
After his first taste of spaceflight, as
a flight engineer on the space station's Expedition
9 mission in 2004, Fincke said he knew he wanted to go back. This time,
however, he'll have the added role of mission commander.
"This time around, I'm
going to be spending a lot of time looking at the overall mission and making
sure that my crew is given everything they need to so that they can do their
job effectively, as well as make sure the ground team is happy," he told SPACE.com.
"It's going to be tricky, but fortunately we have such a good relationship
in our crew and with the ground teams already that I think it's going to go
smoothly. We have such good working relationships that it's going to be a lot
of fun along the way."
Fincke is married to wife Renita, and has three children: 7-year-old son Chandra, 4-year-old
daughter Tarali and new baby daughter Surya, about 7 months old. Their names translate
to "moon," "star," and "sun," respectively.
"They're definitely
the reasons why I even bother to come back from flying into space," Fincke
said.
While being away from his family will be difficult, he said
there is one upside.
"I have three young children at home, and it's a very
noisy home and I don't get much sleep," he said jokingly. "I'm not
complaining whatsoever though, it's my joy. However, I am looking forward to
the quiet time aboard the space station, and getting a chance to relax and read
a little bit."
Veteran cosmonaut
The son of Russian geologists, Lonchakov, 43, grew up in Aktyubinsk, Kazakhstan, where his
parents were conducting research. He is married to wife Tatyana, and they have
one son.
Once as a young student, Lonchakov
visited Star City, where Russian cosmonauts train, and the experience inspired
him to pursue his own goal of flying in space.
"I made myself a promise that I will one day become a
professional astronaut, so this was my dream from the early years and now I am
very happy that this dream is coming true for the third time," Lonchakov said
in a NASA interview.
A pilot in the Russian Air Force, Lonchakov joined Russia's
test cosmonaut ranks in 1997 and flew aboard the shuttle Endeavour's STS-100
mission to the space station in 2001. He later spent about 10 days aboard the station
in 2002 via a Soyuz
flight.
He said he is looking forward to his first long-duration
mission, especially since he feels so comfortable with the crew.
"It's [full of] very professional people and very
nice," he told SPACE.com. "Yes, our training is certainly easy
because I've known Michael Fincke a long time, and I know Koichi and Sandy no
problem. I know them like family."
The multinational Expedition 18 crew exemplifies the spirit
of international collaboration that Lonchokov said he values in the International
Space Station program.
"I think the very name, International Space Station,
already is self-explaining in that from the very first elements of this station
we saw international crews operating the outpost, Americans, Russians,
Europeans, Japanese," he said. "So what we're seeing is the
international project shaping up in space in the interests of the entire
mankind, of the human progress, and this is, and this is great not only for us
as a spaceflight professionals, both in space and on the ground, but also for
the future of humanity."
The Expedition 18 crew is set to launch into space on
Sunday, Oct. 12 at 3:01 a.m. EDT (0701 GMT). NASA will broadcast the launch
live via NASA TV. Click here for
SPACE.com's NASA TV feed and space station mission updates.
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