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Next Space Station Crew Passes Pre-Flight Exam

Posted on: Monday, 29 March 2004, 06:00 CST

STAR CITY, Russia (AP) -- The three-man crew headed to the International Space Station next month passed a preflight exam Monday at Russia's Star City cosmonaut training center, space officials said.

U.S. astronaut Mike Fincke and Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka are in the final preparations for their six-month stay at the orbiting outpost.

The pair, who have been training together for years, will be launched aboard a Russian rocket in April. A Dutch astronaut, Andrei Kejpers, will join them for a week and then return with the current two-member crew.

"This is an exam for us so there's a little bit of excitement about the exam," Fincke said. "But it's a dream come true for me to work at Star City."

The exam tested how the trio would cope with the depressurization of the space station and the subsequent loss of oxygen - a problem similar to what the current residents had to contend with earlier this year.

Space officials on Earth noticed a gradual reduction in station air pressure, touching off a search for the cause. On Jan. 11, U.S. astronaut Michael Foale and his crewmate, Russian cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri, discovered a leaking hose, which they removed and capped.

Kejpers, meanwhile, had to demonstrate his skill at treating one of the crew members for abdominal pain, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

The tests continue Tuesday - but this time focused on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Russia's three-person rockets have been the only vehicles available to ferry astronauts to and from the station in the wake of last year's Columbia disaster.

The Russians have proposed lengthening the term of stay on the station from six months to one year - a move that would let them use one of the two yearly Soyuz launches to carry two paying customers. NASA is reportedly considering the proposal.

Meanwhile, the next civilian to be rocketed into orbit on a US$20 million trip is expected to be Gregory Olsen, a U.S. scientist who made a fortune with optics inventions.

Olsen, the founder of Sensors Unlimited, Inc. in Princeton, New Jersey, leaves for Star City this week to begin training. His eight-day voyage, organized by Space Adventures, is scheduled for April 2005, but there's a chance he could go this October.

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