New Crew Prepares for Launch to International Space Station
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AP) — All three men heading to the international space station in a Russian-built Soyuz spacecraft this Thursday will be riding the tiny craft for the first time, breaking with 35 years of tradition.
In the past, at least one crewman heading into space had ridden in a Soyuz before, but many veterans have resigned and Russia’s space agency hasn’t had enough seats to train their replacements.
Still, Russians Salizhan Sharipov and Yuri Shargin and American Leroy Chiao say they aren’t worried about their blastoff, set for 7:06 a.m. Thursday. Chiao and Sharipov both have flown U.S. space shuttles, while Shargin is a rookie.
“We have logged many hours in a simulator and got prepared for all regular and emergency regimes,” Sharipov told reporters Wednesday.
“I have flown shuttles three times … and I would very much like to fly a Soyuz, which would be a new adventure for me,” Chiao said. “Both ships are very good, very reliable.”
Russian space officials have played down the lack of Soyuz experience, and the crew said Wednesday that thorough training had compensated for it. Their trip to the international space station will take two days.
Soyuz spacecraft are guided by autopilot on their approach to the station and during the docking, but the crew is trained to go manual in case of computer failure.
“We hope that the docking will be conducted in automatic mode, but the crew is ready to switch to manual controls if the need arises,” Sharipov said.
Since the late 1960s, Soviet and Russian space crews always have included a cosmonaut with previous pilot experience to ensure a smooth ride to space. No longer.
“It’s not a problem. We simply need to adapt to new conditions,” said Yuri Grigoryev, a spokesman for Russia’s Cosmonaut Training Center.
The grounding of the U.S. shuttle fleet following the Feb. 1, 2003, Columbia disaster has made Russian spacecraft the sole link to the 16-nation station. One of three seats on the latest Soyuz missions was assigned to a U.S. astronaut.
To earn some extra cash, the underfunded Russian space agency has also sold several seats to European astronauts or space tourists.
Shargin will return to Earth 10 days later with the station’s current crew, Russian Gennady Padalka and American Mike Fincke, who are winding down a six-month mission.
The mission’s launch has been delayed twice because of technical problems. It was initially set for this past Saturday, but officials pushed it back after uncovering a problem with the ship’s docking system. The glitch was connected to the accidental detonation of one of the explosive bolts used to separate the ship’s various components.
The launch had to be delayed again when a tank with hydrogen peroxide burst because of a sudden change in pressure, said Yuri Semyonov, the head of the RKK Energia company, which built the Soyuz.
After arriving at the station, a crucial task for the crew will be to fix a broken generator, which makes oxygen from waste water. Previous repair efforts have failed, and the new crew is bringing some spare parts.
Oxygen supplies on the station are running out, and U.S. space officials have warned that if Russians fail to launch the next Progress cargo ship by late December to replenish them, the station may have to be left unoccupied briefly.
During the mission, the new crew also is set to conduct experiments to research new AIDS vaccines and study plant growth.
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