A Soyuz space capsule carrying two Russians, an American and an out-of-this-world dinner headed for a docking with the international space station on Monday. The capsule is to dock with the space station at 3:12 p.m. ET, about 50 hours after it took off from Russia's launch facility at Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
Today, the Soyuz capsule with the Expedition 15 Crew for the International Space Station, and "space tourist" Charles Simonyi will dock with the Station. ESA TV will provide live rebroadcast of NASA-TV coverage as follows: 9 April 18:45-19:15 GMT LIVE: Soyuz Docking with the ISS.
It looks like a bonanza for the Russian space industries - the planned retirement of the U.S. space shuttle fleet around 2010 would make Russia the principal carrier of crews and cargo to the international space station, sharply raising its revenues. But some Russian cosmonauts and space experts are worried that this privileged position would be short-lived and only drain resources from efforts to design a replacement to the veteran Soyuz spacecraft, the reliable but plodding workhorse of the nation's space programme for 40 years.
NASA astronaut Mike Lopez-Alegria set a new U.S. single spaceflight endurance record today, eclipsing the 196-day mark set five years ago. Lopez-Alegria, a 48-year-old U.S. Navy captain, has been serving as the commander of the three-person crew of the international space station since September. He is scheduled to return to Earth on April 19 aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule with crewmate Mikhail Tyurin a cosmonaut, and American space tourist Charles Simonyi .
Internet entrepreneurs Jennifer Bellofatto, 33, and Cherry Mendoza, 32, plan on becoming the sixth and seventh space tourists ever. Following in the footsteps of five private cosmonauts, these two full-time mothers will begin training in the fall of 2007. Preparation for orbital spaceflight begins with a six month training period at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Star City, Russia. The physical component includes Soyuz simulation, centrifuge and spacewalk training, and mock launch and re-entry drills. Once aboard the Soyuz capsule, Bellofatto and Mendoza will spend 10 days at the International Space Station (ISS), a laboratory circling 220 miles above Earths surface.
The three crew members of the international space station took a brief trip outside Thursday, relocating a Russian Soyuz vehicle to make room for another spacecraft to dock next month. Dressed in Russian spacesuits, Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin and U.S. astronauts Michael Lopez-Alegria and Sunita Williams piled into the Soyuz vehicle, which undocked from the space station and travelled about 80 feet to another docking port.
The Progress M-58 spacecraft (Progress 23) undocked from the Zvezda module of the ISS shortly after 18:00 GMT (2 pm EDT ) Tuesday. At approximately 23:20 GMT (7:20 pm EDT) the spacecraft fired its thrusters for a deorbiting manoeuvre and re-entered over the South Pacific Ocean . The spacecraft was filled with ISS rubbish before it was undocked. With the Progress spacecraft now gone, the ISS crew will board the remaining Soyuz TMA-9 spacecraft on Thursday to move it from its current docking location on the Zarya module to the Zvezda module. This will free up the Zarya docking port for the next Soyuz mission, scheduled to arrive at the ISS early next month.