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Russian-US Crew Prepares For Space Station Mission
Baikonur, Kazakhstan (AFP) Oct 12, 2004 A Russian-US crew will blast off from here Thursday bound for the orbiting international space station on a six-month mission to conduct a series of scientific experiments. The Soyuz TMA-5 spacecraft will carry Leroy Chiao of the United States and Russia's Salizhan Sharipov and Yury Shargin to replace Gennady Padalka, from Russia, and American Michael Fincke who have been in orbit since April. While Chiao and Sharipov will remain on the space station until April 2005 as the 10th crew since the historic launch of the first module in 1998, Shargin will spend only 10 days in orbit during the relief of the crews. The cosmonauts, after training for several months at the Star City near Moscow, are due to carry out 41 scientific, medical, biological and technical experiments. One experiment is to study proteins that could be used to create a vaccine against AIDS, Sharipov said. During the mission, the crew is scheduled to leave the station twice, once in December and once in January, to continue preparations for the docking of a new European cargo spacecraft scheduled for next year. The mission of Shargin - an officer in the Russian defence ministry - on the ISS space station was described by the commander of Russia's space forces in July as "an interesting programme that will be useful to the space forces and to the whole country." Asked about the activities of Shargin on the ISS, Sharipov said they would focus on "ecological monitoring," stressing that the space station was a "civilian" station where military experiments are banned. The launch of Soyuz TMA-5 was originally scheduled for October 9 but was postponed due to technical difficulties with the craft's docking system. Russia's Federal Space Agency reported earlier this month that the technical problems had since been solved. All ISS crew currently travel to the station on Russian vessels. Flights of the US space shuttle were suspended following the disintegration on reentry of the shuttle Columbia in February 2003, but expected to resume next year. All rights reserved. � 2004 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links SpaceDaily Search SpaceDaily Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express Space Station News at Space-Travel.Com
NASA Had No Choice But To Buy Soyuz Flights
Washington DC (SPX) Jan 09, 2006NASA's announcement last week that it will pay Roskosmos $43.6 million for a round-trip ride to the International Space Station this spring, and an equivalent figure for an as-yet-undetermined number of future flights to the station until 2012, represents the agency's acknowledgment that it had no alternative. |
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