Expedition 11 Crew Successfully Launches Toward Space Station
By Tariq Malik
Staff Writer
posted: 14 April 2005
10:20 p.m. ET
Three astronauts bound for the International Space Station (ISS) are
circling the Earth inside a Russian space capsule after successfully
launching into orbit atop a Soyuz rocket.
Tucked inside their Soyuz TMA-6 spacecraft, ISS Expedition 11 commander
Sergei Krikalev, flight engineer John Phillips and Italian astronaut
Roberto Vittori, have begun a two-day journey that will ultimately ferry
them to the space station.
"No problems with the launch," Krikalev told flight controllers as his
spacecraft rose up from its launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Liftoff occurred on time at 8:46 p.m. EDT (0046 April 15 GMT), though it
was 6:46 a.m. Local Time at Baikonur. Vittori and the Expedition 11 crew
launched from the same launch pad that saw Russia’s first manned space
shot – the successful and historic spaceflight of Yuri Gagarin – that
began the human space age on April 12, 1961.
Vittori and the Expedition 11 crew are due to arrive at the ISS on April
16 at about 10:10 p.m. EDT (0210 April 17 GMT), then open the hatches
separating their Soyuz capsule and the station about three hours later.
ISS crew change
Krikalev and Phillips will relieve the space station’s current
caretakers, Expedition 10 commander Leroy Chiao and flight engineer
Salizhan Sharipov, who have been living aboard the orbital outpost since
October 2004.
Vittori, a visiting astronaut representing the European Space Agency
(ESA), will conduct eight days of science experiments while the
Expedition 11 and Expedition 10 crews transfer ISS control.
All three men are spaceflight veterans though today’s launch marked the
beginning of Krikalev’s sixth launch, the most amassed by any cosmonaut.
By the end of Expedition 11, he will have spent about 800 days living in
space and set a new all-time record.
But before that Krikalev can commemorate his new spaceflight record,
Phillips celebrated his own milestone.
The NASA astronaut celebrated his 54th birthday just before liftoff,
receiving birthday wishes from his wife Laura and a handmade sign that
said ‘Happy Birthday Dad.’ He has two children.
“We wish you a safe flight,” former cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the
first woman in space, told Vittori and the Expedition 11 crew during
prelaunch activities.
“Have a good time and take good care of the space station,” said NASA’s
acting administrator Fred Gregory before launch.
Preparing for ISS assembly, shuttle visits
The launch of the Expedition 11 crew marks the beginning of a mission
that, NASA officials hope, will see the visit of two space shuttles to
the ISS.
After taking control the station from the Expedition 10 crew, Krikalev
and Phillips will have just a few weeks to prepare for the arrival of
the Discovery orbiter and NASA’s STS-114 mission, the agency’s first
shuttle flight since the Columbia tragedy.
Just as Russian flight engineers began loading fuel into Expedition 11’s
Soyuz rocket, their shuttle counterparts at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center
in Cape Canaveral, Florida completed a fuel loading test of Discovery’s
redesigned external tank. Discovery is set to launch no earlier than May 15.
“There’s something truly aligned about our two space programs,” said
Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA ISS program manager, after watching the
Expedition 11 crew rocket into space. “We’re in a great position to
begin with return to flight of the shuttle and return to assembly of the
space station.”
During their 180-day spaceflight, Krikalev and Phillips will also
perform two spacewalks to support the ISS, receive two cargo delivers
aboard unmanned Russian supply ships and host the crew of NASA’s STS-121
crew aboard Atlantis – the agency’s second return to flight shuttle
mission – when it arrives sometime in July.
They also hope to see the arrival of a third ISS crewmember, something
the space station has gone without since NASA grounded its shuttle fleet
after the loss of Columbia. Two-person crews have kept the ISS in
working order until renewed shuttle flights could once again begin
delivering the supplies needed to support a larger crew.
“The maintenance work required when you have three people on board is
basically the same as when you have two people on board, and you've got
one whole extra person to do the scientific work,” Phillips said in
prelaunch NASA interview. “I think of it as kind of symbolic, it gets us
back on the road to recovery.”
--
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