14 DAY TRIAL // Three astronauts will climb aboard the Soyuz TMA-02M spacecraft tonight, ahead of a planned blastoff to the International Space Station (ISS). The three will finally complete the Expedition 28 crew aboard the orbital lab, after several weeks of the station being manned by only three astronauts.
The Russian-built manned space capsule will launch today, June 7, at 4:12 pm EDT (2012 GMT). It is currently set at its launch pad, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in the steppes of Kazakhstan.
All of the crew members that will soar to the ISS today will spend about half a year on the ISS, of which three months as part of Expedition 29, and another three as part of Expedition 29.
Riding aboard the Soyuz spacecraft will be Sergei Volkov, a cosmonaut from the Russian Federal Space Agency (RosCosmos), NASA astronaut Mike Fossum, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa.
Once in space, they will join NASA astronaut Ron Garan and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Samokutyaev and Andrey Borisenko as part of the current expedition. The three on the station arrived on the outpost in early April, Space reports.
The current launch takes place about a week after space shuttle Endeavour's bittersweet return from its final mission ever, STS-134. During the orbiter's 11-day stay on the ISS, three of the station crew departed for Earth, passing over command to the remaining colleagues, who became Expedition 28.
According to mission planners, the Soyuz TMA-02 spacecraft is scheduled to catch up with the ISS on Thursday, June 9, at around 2122 GMT. “The State Commission approved our ship and crew for launch tomorrow night. Looks like we're going to do this!!” Fossum wrote on Twitter yesterday.
At this time, Garan, Samokutyaev and Borisenko are scheduled to return back home this September. At that time, NASA astronaut Michael Fossum will officially become the Commander of Expedition 29.
During the current stay, the six astronauts will receive the visit of space shuttle Atlantis, which will also be carrying out its last mission (STS-135). During the orbiter's stay, the ISS crew will carry out a number of spacewalks, to conduct maintenance work aboard the station.
“Now we’re moving out of that phase as this construction assembly’s complete, and more into the science phase that it was really built to do, so it’s exciting as we’re bringing online all of these, the payloads, the different equipment to begin moving it forward with that research capability,” Fossum said of capabilities on the ISS before the flight.