CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. A U.S. astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts will take up residence on the International Space Station next month, setting out on a tour of duty that will be marked more by research than construction work at the frontier outpost.
With only one major assembly job planned between now and December, the third full time crew of the station will ramp up scientific research, carrying out three dozen U.S. and Russian experiments during a four-month stay at the complex.
"Well be into more of a routine operation on board the station that will be, I think, characteristic of what youll see in the future," NASA astronaut Frank Culbertson told reporters Thursday during a series of preflight briefings at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
"I think well be moving into more of a research operation than pure assembly."
Outpost commander Culbertson and two crewmates Russian cosmonauts Vladimir Dezhurov and Mikhail Tyurin will taxi to the station aboard shuttle Discovery, now scheduled for launch Aug. 9 from Kennedy Space Center.
A four-man shuttle crew headed by veteran pilot Scott Horowitz will drop off the so-called Expedition Three crew and then return to Earth Aug. 21 with Yuri Usachev, Susan Helms and Jim Voss, who have been aboard the outpost since March.
The Expedition Two crew and three resident tenants before them oversaw an intense period of outpost construction, one in which NASA and its partners launched U.S. electric power tower, the U.S. Destiny science lab, a Canadian robot arm and an American-made airlock.
The only assembly job for Culbertson and his crew: Supervising the delivery in mid-September of a Russian docking compartment that will serve as an airlock for spacewalks staged from the Russian side of the station.
Three spacewalks will be performed to outfit the outside of the Russian docking compartment, install a Russian construction crane and set out an external science experiment.
The Russian airlock also will provide a third station docking port for Russian Soyuz crew transport vehicles and Progress cargo carriers.
Two Progress freighters will be launched in late August and mid-November to haul supplies up to Culbertson and his crewmates.
Their only visitors will be two Russian cosmonauts and a European astronaut who will deliver a new Soyuz lifeboat to the station in mid-October. After a six-day stay, that crew will return to Earth in a Soyuz spacecraft that was launched to the station in late April.
The Soyuz craft are swapped out every six months in order to keep a fresh lifeboat at the outpost.
The lull in assembly work, meanwhile, will enable the Expedition Three crew to focus on 20 Russian and 18 U.S. research experiments.
Covering a wide array of scientific disciplines, those experiments will include research into the effect of weightlessness on the human cardiovascular, pulmonary and renal systems.
The medical studies all are deemed critical to preparing for future human expeditions to the moon, Mars or beyond, and Culbertson said he and his crew are looking forward to the work.
"We have, I think, a very interesting mission ahead of us," he said.
Culbertson and his cosmonaut colleagues are scheduled to return to Earth aboard shuttle Endeavour on Dec. 9.
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