BAIKONUR COSMODROME, Kazakhstan -- On the scrubby plains of central Kazakhstan, Russian and NASA officials are preparing for the launch of the next space station crew.
The launch, scheduled for Saturday morning -- 11:54 p.m. EDT Friday night -- from Baikonur Cosmodrome, will send American Ed Lu and Russian Commander Yuri Malenchenko to the station for six months.
The Soyuz craft was mated to the rocket Wednesday and the weather looks good for launch.
"Both elements are in excellent shape, ready to be rolled out to the pad tomorrow, and everything's on track for an on-time launch," NASA spokesman Rob Navias said.
The Cosmodrome is a sprawling complex of spread-out buildings and facilities that in some ways looks more like an agricultural center than a space launch facility. The landscape resembles the dry, flat land of West Texas. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man to orbit Earth, launched from the same pad that will host the Soyuz.
Navias is part of a contingent of NASA personnel and family members who will witness the launch.
Among them are Fred Gregory, deputy NASA administrator, and Gen. Michael Kostelnik, deputy associate administrator for the International Space Station and space shuttle.
From Florida Today's launch journal:
8:50 a.m. EDT, Thursday, April 24, 2003
By Chris Kridler, reporting from Russia
FLORIDA TODAYBAIKONUR COSMODROME, Kazakhstan - A crowd of hundreds turned out on a chilly Thursday, just after dawn, to see the rocket that will take the next crew to the International Space Station.
The Soyuz began moving at 6:59 a.m., the time at Baikonur Cosmodrome, pushed by a train engine. It glided, horizontal, over the desert plain as spectators gathered along the tracks to watch. After it reached its pad, it was hoisted into its vertical launch position as NASA VIPs, security personnel, launch-pad workers and Russian space executives looked on.
Mike Foale, one of the two astronauts on the backup crew, looked on as the Soyuz was raised to vertical. Did he wish he were going?
"We'll have our chance," Foale said. He is assigned to the prime crew of Expedition 8, he said, which will launch on a Soyuz in October. The shuttle fleet is not expected to be flying by then.
The launch is scheduled for Saturday morning, Baikonur time - 11:53.51 p.m. EDT on Friday. Yuri Malenchenko and Ed Lu will fly to the station to replace Ken Bowersox, Nikolai Budarin and Don Pettit, who will land in the station's old Soyuz about a week later.
Watching the rollout was Lu's fiancee, Christine Romero. Though they met more than two years ago, "he proposed in Star City," she said, just about a week ago.
"We've been kind of unofficially engaged for a long time," she said. "... It was a nice thing to do before he launched."
Romero met Lu in Peru at the wedding of another astronaut, Nicholas Patrick. Malenchenko just got engaged, too, Romero said. He met his Russian fiancee in Houston.
Lu and Malenchenko originally were to live with a third station crewmate, Alexander Kaleri. They were to launch on shuttle Atlantis in March. Crews were reconfigured after the Columbia accident, because two-person crews require fewer resources.
"The three original guys, we called them 'three bachelors in a can,'" Romero said.
Kaleri is Foale's backup crewmate.
Lu's brother Rick is excited about the launch. "He's excited, too," he said of his brother. "Ed's been looking forward to this."
Despite this being the first human spaceflight since the Columbia accident, Rick Lu isn't worried. "Soyuz is an extremely reliable vehicle," he said. "Even if he were to launch on shuttle, I wouldn't be worried either."
NASA personnel watching the rollout included Bob Cabana, director of flight crew operations, and the Johnson Space Center director, Jefferson Davis Howell Jr.
Published under license from FLORIDA TODAY. Copyright © 2003 FLORIDA TODAY. No portion of this material may be reproduced in any way without the written consent of FLORIDA TODAY.
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