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Three-Man Crew Will Return to Space Station

Posted on: Monday, 17 March 2003, 06:00 CST

Russian officials claim that a three-man crew will go to space station within six months

Washington (AFP) -- A three-man crew will be sent to the International Space Station (ISS) within six months, after a period when only two astronauts will be stationed there, Russian space officials said Sunday.

The United States is relying on Russia to transport crew to and from the orbiting space station, following the disintegration of the shuttle Columbia in February, which brought US space shuttle flights to a halt.

"The crews have already been agreed upon with our partners in the ISS project, and I signed an order confirming this on Thursday," Russian Space Agency chief Yuri Koptev was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

One of the US operations that has been scrapped is a trip to the ISS in March by the space shuttle Discovery, which was to exchange the present three-man crew aboard the station and replace it with a new one.

That means that the crew rotation will be carried out by a Russian Soyuz, due to be launched in late April from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, carrying Russian astronaut Yuri Malenchenko and US cosmonaut Edward Lu, the Russian official said.

The 16 nations who participate in the ISS have agreed to launch only two crewmen on the April Soyuz flight, who will stay onboard the station to keep essential systems ticking over.

This is because the Russian craft has limited space to deliver food and water supplies.

The Soyuz will bring back the current ISS crew, US astronauts Ken Bowersox and Don Pettit and Russian cosmonaut Nikolai Budarin, in May.

Then an unmanned Progress supply vehicle will be launched to the station in June.

And the next crew that will lift off in autumn 2003 will be composed of Russian cosmonaut Alexander Kalery, US astronaut Michael Foale and a European Space Agency astronaut from Spain, Pedro Duque, the Russian space chief said.

The United States and Russia are the biggest partners in the ISS venture, notably providing the transport.

Europe is supplying a science module and sending up its astronauts, on shuttle and Soyuz flights, to carry out experiments or help in the station assembly.

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