The Expedition 17 crew of the International Space Station continued to prepare the Jules Verne Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) for its undocking Friday.

The crew readied and tested the ATV's proximity communications equipment Wednesday in preparation for its undocking from the aft port of the Zvezda service module. The Jules Verne delivered more than 7,500 pounds of equipment, supplies, water, fuel and gases when it arrived at the orbiting complex on April 3.

Flight Engineer Greg Chamitoff worked with plumbing for the new Water Recovery System (WRS) that will recycle wastewater into drinkable water. Equipment for the new WRS is scheduled to fly to the station aboard space shuttle Endeavour on STS-126 in November.

For Austin game guru Richard Garriott, almost every vacation is a working one.

He won't be taking a BlackBerry and fax machine with him when he goes on his most adventurous trip yet this fall: a 10-day jaunt to the International Space Station.

But Garriott, who helped start the Austin video gaming industry, is using his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to travel aboard a Russian Soyuz spaceship to do much more than just sight-seeing. He'll be conducting experiments for research institutions, working with a nonprofit to mimic the pictures of Earth his astronaut father took in 1973 aboard Skylab, communicating with students around the world and marketing his latest computer game, Tabula Rasa.