Two crews of
astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) are hard
at work preparing the orbital facility for its next six months of
spaceflight.
ISS Expedition
10 commander Leroy Chiao, flight engineer Salizhan Sharipov and visiting
cosmonaut Yuri Shargin are now more than halfway through their eight-day
handover period and getting acquainted with their spacebound home.
"We've been
soaking everything up in this week of transition,"Chiao said during an Oct. 20
news conference. "The station looks quite a bit different from the last time I
was here."
Chiao, Sharipov
and Shargin arrived at the station early Oct. 16, the first human visitors for
Expedition 9 crew Gennady Padalka and Michael Fincke since they took over ISS
operations in April. For Chiao, the ISS arrival occurred four years after he
last visited the station during a construction mission.
"With
the addition of the laboratory and docking compartments [since then], the
station is quite a bit bigger," Chiao said.
Changing the ISS guard
Padalka and
Fincke have spent the last few days bringing the Expedition 10 crew up to speed
on the space station's status.
"I'm focusing on
sharing all of the stuff we've learned in the past six months," Fincke said of
the handover period. ISS corridors are filling up with cargo slated to be
returned to Earth via NASA's space shuttle- which is not expected to fly during
Expedition 10's mission - but has not reached serious levels, he
added.
While Shargin
has been working through a full schedule of science experiments, the joint
Expedition 9-Expedition 10 crew performed some final repairs on the space
station's oxygen producing Elektron device using spare parts brought up by the
Chiao and Sharipov.
"They made the
repairs permanent," Fincke said of the procedures. "We're really confident the
Elektron is going to be in great shape."
The primary
oxygen-generating device aboard the ISS, the Russian-built Elektron failed in
early September and was later restored to intermittent operation by the
Expedition 9 crew.
In addition
to the Elektron work, Chiao and Fincke began repairs on a U.S.-built spacesuit
cooling system. The work follows repairs made by Fincke on another U.S.
spacesuit in August, when he spent 4.5 hours replacing a cooling system rotor
pump.
Returning to Earth
After
formally handing over control of the ISS to Chiao and Sharipov, the Expedition
9 crew and Shargin will return to Earth on Oct. 23 in their Soyuz TMA-4
spacecraft.
"I got to see some video of my daughter," Fincke said of
his new baby girl Tarali Paulina, who was born in June. "She can turn over now,
she's getting really big without me."
Fincke said
he, Padalka and Shargin expect to run through a simulation of undocking and
reentry to prepare for their return.
"The
Soyuz is ready to go," he said, adding that he's eager to see his family.
"They're going to meet me in Russia."
In November,
Chiao and Sharipov will move their Soyuz TMA-5 spacecraft from its current berth
at the Pirs docking compartment to a docking port on the station's Zarya module.
The move will free up the Pirs compartment for use during two upcoming
spacewalks.
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