14 DAY TRIAL // Tomorrow, three space fliers will take off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan, and will head to the International Space Station. These astronauts will join the other two already in orbit, and together they will form the Expedition 22 crew. ISS Commander Jeff Williams and flight engineer Maxim Suraev, who are already onboard, have been manning the station by themselves since the last space shuttle Atlantis mission, Space reports.
The take off is scheduled to take place December 20, at 4:51 pm EDT (2151 GMT). The new Expedition 22 members will launch aboard the Russian-built Soyuz TMA-17 capsule. The team managing it is made up of veteran cosmonaut and medical doctor Oleg Kotov (RosCosmos), rookie NASA astronaut Timothy Creamer, and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) second-time space flier Soichi Noguchi.
Kotov will ensure the health of the Expedition 22 crew members. “I [will be] the designated crew medical officer aboard the station. I [will] help them to feel better,” he said recently, in an interview. He visited the ISS before, in 2007, when he was a flight engineer on Expedition 15. After he completes his new stay on the space lab, he will assume command once Expedition 22 concludes. He is also the leader of the new Soyuz flight carrying the two in orbit. Kotov graduated from the Kirov Military Medical Academy, and has two children.
JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi is also on his second voyage to the ISS. He also visited the outpost in 2005, when he was onboard the space shuttle Discovery, during the STS-114 assembly flight. In March 2010, Japan will register a new record, when two of its astronauts will meet on the space station. Noguchi will meet up with colleague Naoko Yamazaki, who will be a member of the STS-131 mission. “This is the first time ever that two Japanese [astronauts] are in space, so we're really looking forward to it,” Noguchi said in a pre-flight interview.
Timothy Creamer is currently just ahead of its first trip in space. He was selected to be an astronaut as far back as 1998, but it's only now that his time to go came. The Upper Marlboro, Maryland-native is a former aviator, and he has two children. “Floating to me is something I'm looking forward to doing,” he said.