New Russian, NASA Crew for ISS Pass Fresh Tests at Space Training Centre

Excerpt from report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS

Zvezdnyy Gorodok, (Moscow Region), 20 September: The main crew of the 10th expedition to the International Space Station (ISS), at a pre-flight “state test” today, successfully extinguished a fire and eliminated a loss in air-tightness on the Russian segment of the ISS.

Andrey Kuritsyn, the chief of the instructors’ department for comprehensive training on equipment of the Russian segment of the ISS at the cosmonauts’ training centre, has reported this to ITAR- TASS.

“Russia’s Salizhan Sharipov, NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao and Lt- Col Yuriy Shargin of the Russian Space Troops, who are going to the ISS on a visit mission, fulfilled all examination tasks with an `excellent’ mark,” he said.

Apart from the fire and ensuring air-tightness, there were two other “exam questions”, to remove a malfunction in the Elektron oxygen regeneration system and to give urgent medical aid on board the ISS. [Passage omitted]

The launch of a Soyuz TMA-5 with the three cosmonauts on board is planned for 9 October. However, Roskosmos does not exclude that it “will be postponed for 48 hours”.