This story was updated at 4:57 p.m. EDT.
Billionaire
space tourist Charles Simonyi is saying farewell to the International Space
Station as he prepares to return to Earth Wednesday to complete his second
multimillion-dollar spaceflight.
Simonyi,
the world's first repeat space tourist, is due to land tomorrow at 3:16 a.m.
EDT (0716 GMT) when his Russian-built
Soyuz spacecraft lands on the Central Asian steppes of Kazakhstan, where it
will be afternoon when the capsules touches down. The space station's outgoing
crew — Expedition 18 commander Michael Fincke of NASA and Russian flight
engineer Yury Lonchakov — will also return to Earth with Simonyi as they wrap
up a six-month mission to the orbiting lab.
"Here's to
a really good flight, and I'm hoping for a soft landing," Simonyi said in an
audio message posted to his mission Web site, where he has been chronicling his
flight.
Simonyi, an
American computer software developer, is paying about $35 million for a 13-day
spaceflight under an agreement between Russia's Federal Space Agency and the
Virginia-based firm Space
Adventures. It is his second spaceflight and follows a 14-day flight in
2007, for which he paid about $20 million in a similar deal.
A native of
Hungary, Simonyi launched to the station with two members of the outpost's new Expedition
19 crew on March 26 and arrived two days later. His flight was initially slated
to last 12 days, but was extended by the Russian mission controllers in order
to change landing zones when bad weather flooded the initial target.
Simonyi
said he enjoyed the
extra day in space, but was eager to return to Earth to his family and wife
Lisa Persdotter, whom he married last year.
"I am very
happy about the extra day, but it will be good to be back with my family for
Easter," Simonyi wrote on his Web site. "The return trip will be only two hours
from the closing of the hatch to touchdown."
Back to
Earth
Unlike
Simonyi, who is completing a nearly two-week flight, Fincke and Lonchakov are
returning to Earth after spending half a year living and working aboard the
space station.
The astronaut
and cosmonaut performed two spacewalks and hosted two visiting NASA space
shuttles during their mission. They worked to prime the space station to double
its current three-person crew size later this year by installing, then
repairing, vital life support equipment such as a urine recycler, second
kitchen and second bathroom, as well as extra gym equipment. The station is
expected to begin permanent six-person operations in late May.
"It's
bittersweet," Fincke said. "I can't wait to see my beautiful wife and kids
again, but I love the space station."
Fincke
turned control of the space station over to Expedition
19 commander Gennady Padalka of Russia — who launched with Simonyi and NASA astroanut Michael Barratt — last
week during an 11-day crew change.
Fincke,
Lonchakov and Simonyi are expected to hold a brief farewell ceremony with
Padalka and his two crewmates tonight at about 8:45 p.m. EDT (0045 April 8
GMT). They are then scheduled to undock their Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft from the
station at 11:52 p.m. EDT (0352 GMT) tonight, and then fire their spacecraft's
engines at 2:24 a.m. EDT (0624 GMT) Wednesday in a braking maneuver to begin
the descent back to Earth.
"It makes
it even a little bit tougher because we have such a great crew, all six of us
here at one time," Fincke said. "It's going to be really tough to shut the
hatch and leave."
Space
tourist Charles Simonyi is chronicling his second spaceflight on his Web site: www.charlesinspace.com.
SPACE.com
will provide full coverage of Simonyi's second space tourist flight and the
Expedition 18 crew's landing with senior editor Tariq
Malik in New York. Click here for
mission updates and SPACE.com's live NASA TV video feed. Live undocking and
landing coverage begins at 11:30 p.m. EDT (0330 GMT).
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