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Russian Spacecraft Docks With International Space Station

Posted on: Sunday, 17 October 2004, 06:00 CDT

Russian spacecraft docks with international space station

MOSCOW, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- Russian spacecraft carrying a Russian- US crew successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday morning.

The Soyuz TMA-5, which was launched Thursday from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, docked with the orbiting station at 8:15 a.m. Moscow time (0415 GMT), the mission control said.

Aboard the spacecraft are Russian cosmonauts Salizhan Sharipov and Yuri Shargin, and Leroy Chiao of the United States.

The automatic docking proceeded normally but at the last minute the crew manually guided the spaceship towards the station, said the mission control, adding that the crewmembers feel okay.

Sharipov and Chiao, the tenth ISS expedition, will replace Russian Gennady Padalka and American Michael Fincke who have been in orbit since April.

Shargin, a Russian space forces officer, will return to earth on Oct. 24 with the outgoing ninth crew.

Sharipov and Chiao are expected to stay for six months aboard the floating space hub and conduct a large number of medical, biological, and technical experiments. One of the experiments will concern inventing an anti-AIDS vaccine, the Interfax news agency reported.

They will also carry out two space walks in December and January to continue preparations for the docking of a new European cargo spacecraft scheduled for next year.

ISS, the 16-nation floating space hub, used to be heavily reliant on US shuttle flights. But since the US shuttle program has been grounded after NASA's Columbia spaceship disintegrated on Feb. 1, 2003, killing all seven crew on board, Russian Soyuz crew capsules and Progress cargo ships remain the sole means of transportation to the space station.

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