Eighth Iss Mission Preparing For Launch

BAIKONUR. Oct 17 (Interfax) – The spaceship carrying the eighth mission to the International Space Station (ISS) will blast off from the Baikonur launching pad on Saturday morning.

On Friday, the mission’s members, Russian cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri, NATO astronaut Michael Foale and European Space Agency astronaut Pedro Duque, gave a number of interviews. They also planted trees near the hotel where all the astronauts are living before the launch.

They will be shown an old Soviet film, the White Sun of the Desert, later today.

The ISS mission of Kaleri and Foale will last for 200 days. Duque will stay on board the ISS for only ten days.

The mission members will meet with an Orthodox priest a few hours before the launch.

The families of the U.S. and Spanish astronauts will watch the launch at the Baikonur center. Kaleri’s family will watch the launch in a live televised broadcast.

The eighth ISS mission is scheduled to take off at 9:38 a.m. Moscow time. The spaceship will use the same launching pad that the first Soviet cosmonaut Yury Gagarin used for launching more than 40 years ago.