New Space Station Crew Members Launch from Kazakhstan

Michael Curie

Headquarters, Washington                                        

 

Kelly Humphries

Johnson Space Center, Houston

HOUSTON -- NASA astronaut Mike Fossum, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov and Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa launched to the International Space Station at 3:12 p.m. CDT Tuesday (2:12 a.m. local time, Wednesday) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Fossum, Furukawa and Volkov - the Soyuz commander- are scheduled to dock their spacecraft with their new home at 4:22 p.m. Thursday, June 9. They will join Expedition 28 commander Andrey Borisenko and flight engineer Alexander Samokutyaev of the Russian space agency and Ron Garan of NASA. The trio has been aboard the station since April 6.

On Thursday, coverage of the Soyuz docking will begin on NASA Television at 3:30 p.m. NASA TV coverage of the hatches opening and the welcoming ceremony aboard the orbiting laboratory will begin at 8:30 p.m.

The six-person crew will continue the uninterrupted presence of humans on the station since Nov. 2, 2000, conducting expanded scientific research and station maintenance activities. The station residents also will welcome the crew of the last space shuttle flight, Atlantis' STS-135 mission, targeted to launch July 8. The shuttle will deliver critical supplies in the Italian-built Raffaello multi-purpose logistics module and support spacewalks by Fossum and Garan to retrieve a failed cooling system pump module, which Atlantis will return to Earth for analysis.

Garan, Borisenko and Samokutyaev, who launched to the station April 4, will return to Earth in September. Before departing, Borisenko will hand over command of the station to Fossum for Expedition 29, which begins when the Soyuz TMA-21 undocks.

NASA astronaut Dan Burbank and Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin will join Fossum, Volkov and Furukawa to complete the Expedition 29 crew in September.

Fossum will blog about his experiences while aboard the space station. His first blog entry will be posted later today at http://blogs.nasa.gov.

For NASA TV streaming video, schedule and downlink information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

For more information about Expedition 29 and the space station, visit http://www.nasa.gov/station.

To follow Twitter updates from Expedition 28-29 crew member Garan, visit http://twitter.com/Astro_Ron.

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Preparing for Launch

Launch pad engineers at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan are dwarfed by the gantry mechanisms at the base of the Soyuz TMA-02M rocket following its rollout to the pad on Sunday, June 5, 2011. The rocket is being prepared for launch June 8 to carry the crew of Expedition 28 to the International Space Station.

Image Credit: NASA/Carla Cioffi

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Shuttle Crew Wrapping Up Work Aboard Station

Mission Specialist Mike Fincke is wrapping up work on the Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly while Mission Specialists Drew Feustel and Greg Chamitoff are organizing and stowing spacewalking tools.

Later in the crew day, Commander Mark Kelly will offer congratulatory words to the participants in the Space Shuttle Program’s “Face In Space” campaign for the STS-134 mission. Participants submitted 128,940 photos for uplink to Endeavour via the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The images will return to Earth through a data transmission, and contributors will be able to print certificates verifying their photos flew aboard Endeavour.

At 6:56 a.m. EDT, the crew of Endeavour will say goodbye to the Expedition 28 crew members then close the hatches between the International Space Station and Endeavour for the last time as the shuttle crew prepares for undocking and return to Earth on Wednesday.

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Expedition 28 Crew Departs Star City

Expedition 28 crew members--Flight Engineer Satoshi Furukawa, left, Soyuz commander Sergei Volkov, center, and Flight Engineer Mike Fossum--answer reporters' questions during a press conference held on the grounds of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, Wednesday, May 25, 2011 in Star City, Russia. The crew later departed for Baikonur, Kazakhstan, in preparation for their June launch to the International Space Station.

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

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