 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Expedition 18 Crew To Launch From Baikonur
Baikonur, Kazakhstan (SPX) Oct 10, 2008 Commander Edward Michael "Mike" Fincke and Flight Engineer Yury Valentinovich Lonchakov of the 18th International Space Station crew are scheduled to launch in their Soyuz TMA-13 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan about 3 a.m. EDT Sunday to begin a six-month stay in space. With Fincke, an Air Force colonel, and Lonchakov, a colonel in the Russian Air Force, will be spaceflight participant Richard Garriott, flying under contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency. Garriott will return to Earth with Expedition 17 crew members, Commander Sergei Volkov and Flight Engineer Oleg Kononenko, in their Soyuz TMA-12 on Oct. 23. Expedition 17 launched to the station April 8. Expedition 18 crew members will be welcomed by the Expedition 17 crew, including astronaut Gregory E. Chamitoff, after their docking to the orbiting laboratory, scheduled for Tuesday. Chamitoff launched to the station on the STS-124 mission of Discovery May 31. He joined Expedition 17 in progress and will provide Expedition 18 with an experienced flight engineer for the first part of its increment. Fincke, 41, is making his second long-duration flight on the station. He is a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and holds master's degrees from Stanford University and the University of Houston, Clear Lake. He served as an Air Force flight test engineer. He was selected by NASA in 1996. He was commander of the second NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO 2), working seven days on the seafloor off Florida in May 2002. He served as a flight engineer on station Expedition 9 from April to October 2004. Lonchakov, 43, is a graduate of the Orenburg Air Force Pilot School and the Zhukovski Air Force Academy. He is a class 1 air force pilot. He has more than 1,400 hours of flight time. He also is a paratroop training instructor with 526 jumps. He was selected as a test cosmonaut candidate in late 1997. He has flown two previous space missions, STS-100 to the station in April 2001 and a Soyuz delivery flight to the station in October and November 2002. Astronaut Sandra H. Magnus is scheduled to fly to the station on STS-126 to replace Chamitoff as a flight engineer on E18. Magnus, 43, will be replaced near the end of Expedition 18 by Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, who will launch on Discovery on the STS-119 mission. Magnus holds bachelor's and master's degrees in physics from the University of Missouri-Rolla and a Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology. She was selected as an astronaut in 1996. Magnus will be making her second spaceflight. She flew as a mission specialist on STS-112 in October 2002. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Share This Article With Planet Earth
Related Links ISS Station at NASA Station and More at Roscosmos S.P. Korolev RSC Energia Watch NASA TV via Space.TV Space Station News at Space-Travel.Com
ISS Orbit Adjusted By Russian Progress Ship
Moscow (RIA Novosti) Oct 06, 2008The International Space Station was successfully moved to a higher orbit Saturday in an operation put off Thursday due to a threat from space debris, a Mission Control spokesman said. |
|
|
| The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2007 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement |
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
YahooMyWeb
Google
Facebook