CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. Two Russians and an American will fly an emergency lifeboat from one port to another at the International Space Station early Friday, clearing the way for a the arrival of visitors next week.

NASA TV

The crew of the International Space Station will board their Soyuz lifeboat for a short, port-to-port move at the outpost Friday. Click here for live coverage beginning at 6:30 a.m. EDT (1030 GMT).

Wearing Russian partial pressure flight suits, cosmonauts Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Turin will climb aboard a Soyuz lifeboat along with station skipper Frank Culbertson, temporarily leaving the outpost in the hands of ground controllers in Moscow and Houston.

With Dezhurov at the controllers, the bug-shaped spacecraft will back away from a port on the stations Russian Zarya space tug about 6:48 a.m. EDT (1048 GMT).

The trio then will take a short ride over to a port on the outposts newly installed Russian airlock, which doubles as an extra parking place for Soyuz crew transport vehicles and Progress cargo carriers.

The 20-minute move, which will be broadcast live on NASA TV, is being carried out to clear the Zarya port for a visiting Soyuz crew now scheduled to launch Sunday from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Cosmonauts Victor Afanasyev and Konstantin Kozeev, flying with French astronaut Claudie Haignere, will deliver a new Soyuz to the station next Tuesday and then return to Earth Oct. 30 in the lifeboat now at the outpost.

Russian Soyuz spacecraft have an on-orbit life of about six months and are replaced at the outpost twice each year.

Launched in August, Culbertson and his cosmonaut colleagues are in the midst of a four-month research tour aboard the international station. The trio is scheduled to return to Earth Dec. 10 aboard NASAs shuttle Endeavour.