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Expedition 9 Set to Take Command of Space Station

Posted on: Wednesday, 28 April 2004, 06:00 CDT

NASA -- With Expedition 8 Commander Mike Foale and Flight Engineer Alexander Kaleri wrapping up their six-month tour on the International Space Station, they held a formal change of command ceremony with the Expedition 9 crew on Monday.

As Foale handed Expedition 9 Commander Gennady Padalka unofficial command of the "planet's only existing base camp" in space, Foale said "we are leaving you with an ISS that is as capable and worthy as we received it."

Padalka said that he and NASA ISS Science Officer Mike Fincke "pledge to carry on the legacy of human spaceflight that those before us have forged for the future generation of explorers."

The official change of command will occur once the Expedition 8 crew boards their Soyuz spacecraft to return to Earth on Thursday.

Pedalka and Fincke arrived at the station in their Soyuz at 1:01 a.m. EDT Wednesday, and following leak checks and hatch opening, they entered the orbiting laboratory at 2 a.m. EDT.

Traveling with them was European Space Agency (ESA) Astronaut André Kuipers. He flew to the Station under an agreement between ESA and the Federal Space Agency of Russia.

On April 29, Foale, Kaleri and Kuipers will leave the Station aboard the ISS Soyuz 7 spacecraft and return to Earth. Padalka and Fincke will spend six months maintaining Station operations and continuing scientific research.

Expedition 9's tour of duty -- which already includes two spacewalks and the arrival of two Progress resupply vehicles -- is getting a little busier. Mission managers are now discussing the addition of a third spacewalk to fix a hardware problem.

One of the station's three functioning Control Moment Gyros (CMGs), which help stabilize the station in orbit, failed shortly after the Expedition 9 crew came aboard. The problem appears to be with the gyro's RPCM (Remote Power Controller Module), which is basically a circuit breaker on the outside of the station.

The problem isn't considered a safety issue, and the other two gyros can keep the station in the right position. If one of those were to fail, Russian thrusters could be used to keep the station in place.

Foale said this is the type of failure that has been anticipated and planned for, and said he has no anxiety about the issue. "There is no crisis involved in this whatsoever," Foale said. "It's more a matter of how you plan this -- what's the best way to do it -- details like that that have to be worked out."

Mission managers will decide in a few weeks when and how to do the spacewalk, or Extravehicular Activity (EVA.)

"I've been trained by the best instructors both in Houston and Moscow," said Fincke, "and we're ready for whatever comes."

Expedition 9 will be the third two-person ISS crew. Padalka, a colonel in the Russian air force, is a space flight veteran who spent 198 days aboard the Russian Mir space station in 1999.

Fincke is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force, and Expedition 9 will be his first trip to space. He is excited about the opportunity.

"In life, I don't think we always get a chance for our dreams to come true," he said during a preflight interview. "But I can tell you, right here and right now, that I'm living my dream. I've always dreamed of being an astronaut, and now I'm getting a chance."

EVA and Cargo Ships

The first Progress spacecraft, designated as ISS Progress 14, is scheduled to arrive at the Station on May 21. It too will launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome.

The Progress is an automated, unpiloted cargo version of the Soyuz spacecraft. The Progress is used to bring supplies and fuel to the International Space Station. Once the Progress has served out its usefulness, it is loaded with the Station's discarded items and commanded to undock from the ISS and to burn up in Earth's atmosphere.

The next major event during the crew's stay is the first of two spacewalks. Padalka and Fincke are scheduled to work outside the Station on July 22, with the second spacewalk slated for Aug. 24.

The objectives of these spacewalks are to continue the external outfitting of the Zvezda Service Module and to install cameras, communications gear and navigational aids to Zvezda for the arrival of the European Space Agency's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV). The unpiloted ATV is a cargo ship similar to the Progress vehicle, but larger.

The crew is slated to conduct both spacewalks from the Pirs Docking Compartment wearing Russian Orlan spacesuits. The training they received for the spacewalks is an example of thorough training that a crew receives for the Station. Padalka talked about the training in a preflight interview.

Expedition 9 crewmembers Michael Fincke and Gennady Padalka. Credit: NASA

The Expedition 8 crewmembers, Alexander Kaleri and Michael Foale, will be returning home after 6 months in space. Credit: NASA

Soyuz docked with the space station. Credit: NASA

"Yes, of course, both the spacewalks are scheduled, yes, in Orlan," he said, "but we are well trained to use [the U.S.] EMU, in case of a malfunction, in case of emergency situation. In this case we can use an EMU with no problem. And in this case we can depress and repress in [Joint] Airlock instead of the Docking Compartment."

Sandwiched between the two spacewalks is the arrival of Progress 15, scheduled to lift off from Kazakhstan on July 28 and arrive at the Station two days later.

Science and End of Mission

The crew could spend 300 hours working with U.S., Russian and ISS Partner experiments. The fields covered by the experiments include life sciences, physics and chemistry, and their applications in materials and manufacturing processes. The Station is also used to study the Earth -- its environment, climate, geology, oceanography and more. Earth observations are expected to occupy a relatively large share of this crew's time for scientific activity.

The Expedition 9 crew's science schedule is flexible and will be set as time permits. Even though the lack of Space Shuttle flights has limited the number of new experiments arriving at the Station, Fincke said there is still a lot of work to be done.

"We'll be doing a lot of life sciences, to see how humans react and live in space, the effects of long-term exposure to space on [humans] and some proposed countermeasures," he said. "We're looking into materials science and looking into how materials react and change in space.

"There are fundamental fluid mechanics problems that we're solving with ingenious contraptions that are easy to operate and give real-time data back to the scientists on the ground. It's very impressive, the complement that we're being able to put together, given the short amount of time and the small amount of cargo that we actually have."

Their tour of duty is scheduled to end in October when the Expedition 10 crewmembers -- Commander Leroy Chiao and Flight Engineer Salizhan S. Sharipov -- replace them.

Expedition 10 is scheduled to launch from Baikonur on Oct. 9 and dock Oct. 11. Padalka and Fincke are slated to undock and return to Earth on Oct. 19.

Fincke hopes that in addition to successfully completing the mission's objectives, the crew inspires the next generation of explorers.

"The people who landed on the moon inspired me, and have shaped my life in a way that I ... could have never expected, and here I am, " he said. "And we're hoping that we show on our mission the value of working together, the value of teamwork, the value of knowing one's job, and a good work ethic, so that when other people watch us, the next generation of explorers who are going to be the ones that are walking on Mars, that we've shown them ... how to do it and how they can somehow, in their lives, achieve that dream."

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