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Spanish Astronaut, Not U.S. Pop Singer, Primed For October Soyuz Flight
By Brian Berger
Space News Staff Writer
posted: 11:40 am ET
03 February 2003
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Untitled WASHINGTON -- While an American and a Russian will be the sole occupants of the three-person Soyuz vehicle launching this spring to retrieve the Expedition Six crew from the International Space Station (ISS), European astronaut Pedro Duque will be part of a three-person Soyuz crew launching this fall. NASA and its international partners agreed last week to operate the space station with a two-person caretaker crew beginning in late April or early May. That decision had the immediate effect of postponing Duques flight to the fall. Assuming the U.S. space shuttle flight remains grounded in the wake of the Feb.1 loss of the shuttle Columbia, Duques taxi flight to the ISS could be shorter than planned, according to William Readdy, NASAs associate administrator for space flight. Speaking with reporters at NASAs headquarters here Feb. 28, Readdy said that the partners are discussing flying a shorter than normal taxi flight come October. Normally, when a fresh Soyuz is delivered to the station, its crew remains onboard for about a week before returning home in the Soyuz that has spent the last six months docked to the station as an emergency lifeboat. Because of the limitations on station operations imposed by the grounding of the shuttle fleet, Duque may have only four days to spend on station doing research instead of the usual longer period, Readdy said. The European Space Agency announced on Friday that it had agreed to postpone Duques planned April flight six months to October, but said nothing about a truncated visit. A European official told Space News that the length of his stay is still under discussion. But while Duque would come home after his brief visit, his Russian and American travel companions would like remain on as the Expedition 8 crew. Meanwhile, would-be space tourist Lance Bass of the American singing group *NSYNC told Fox News just before last months Grammy Awards that everything is set for an October Soyuz ride to the ISS. MirCorp President Jeffrey Manber, who racked up thousands of frequent flyer miles travelling between Los Angles, Washington and Moscow trying to get Bass aboard last Octobers Soyuz flight, said he is not aware of any renewed effort to get Bass booked on a Soyuz flight this year. NASA spokesman Al Feinberg said the U.S. space agency yet to make a formal announcement about crew assignments for the October mission to ISS but that he could say that Bass is not in the running.
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