DRY RUN: The members of the ISS crew, Sergei Krikalev and John Phillips, on Tuesday will start "virtual photo hunting" for the Discovery space shuttle on Tuesday. A NASA expert said that the crew will have to train themselves in precise aiming of 800-millimeter lens of the two digital Kodak cameras at the window past which the Discovery will later fly. The photos of the approaching shuttle are necessary to check that its skin is not damaged. Thus, before the Discovery's flight back to the Earth, specialists must be sure that the ceramic skin of the spaceship's body had not been damaged as it happened with the Columbia shuttle on February 1, 2003. During the real event, Sergei Krikalev and John Phillips will have to remain motionless, sitting by the windows, taking photos of the rapidly flying shuttle, so that the photos be clear. "In the service module, the windows are unfortunately not equipped with handholes at which the cosmonauts can catch. Therefore, during the training they must clearly imagine how in conditions of zero-G and being limited in time they can ensure that their bodies and the cameras be motionless." Before starting his flight to the ISS, commander of the 11th expedition Sergei Krikalev, said that before docking with the ISS the Discovery will perform the so-called "tumble" and will fly under the station bottom up at a distance of 200 metres. It is at this moment that the crew will have to photograph the spaceship.
NASA is resuming shuttle flights to the International Space Station despite a known problem that could trigger the loss of both spacecraft and their crews, a risk deemed unacceptable by an agency safety panel. There is a remote chance -- between one in 10,000 and one in 1 million -- that one of the shuttle's steering jets could inadvertently ignite while the orbiter is docked at the station, generating enough force to rip the joined spaceships apart.
A Russian rocket topped with a Soyuz spacecraft was launched to the International Space Station. The sunrise launch took three astronauts, Italian ESA astronaut Roberto Vittori, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev and NASA astronaut John L. Phillips to the station on Sunday, April 17 0100 GMT. Sergei and John, plan to stay aboard for about six months. During that time, two shuttles are expected to dock with the station, more than two years after the shuttle program was suspended in the wake of the Columbia disaster. Launch was at 0:46 UT from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan.
The Expedition 10 crew members, commander and ISS Science Officer Leroy Chiao and Flight Engineer SalizhanSharipov, have returned to Earth aboard the same Soyuz TMA spacecraft that delivered them to the Station. Vittori was with them.
They undocked from the Station at 1845 GMT and landed on Sunday, April 24, at 22:08 GMT (2:08 Moscow time), the landing capsule of Soyuz TMA-5 spacecraft made a soft parachute landing 90km north the town of Arkalyk in Kazakhstan.