Archive - Apr 7, 2009
(NA1SS) Charles Simonyi With (NP3FY) Kirk Coleman
ISS Pass Over Puerto Rico & Charles Simonyi Was Calling Stations on Tuesday, April 6, 2009
ISS Radio Report
Expedition 18 Crew Set to Return Home
The two crews aboard the International Space Station are set to go their separate ways, as Expedition 18 prepares to return to Earth early Wednesday.
After a farewell ceremony with the Expedition 19 crew, the departing Expedition 18 crew members, Commander Mike Fincke and Flight Engineer Yury Lonchakov, will board their Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft and close the hatches around 8:45 p.m. EDT tonight.
The Soyuz is scheduled to undock from the station at 11:52 p.m. for a landing in Kazakhstan at 3:16 a.m. Wednesday. Russian recovery teams and NASA personnel are prepared to reach the crew by helicopter shortly afterwards, even in the event of ballistic landing.
ISS Radio Report
ISS Radio Report
ISS Radio Report
NASA Updates TV Coverage of Next Soyuz Landing
HOUSTON -- NASA Television will air the landing of the Expedition 18 crew and a visiting spaceflight participant on Wednesday, April 8. Russian managers on Friday postponed the Soyuz landing one day and switched to a more southerly landing site in Kazakhstan because of soggy conditions at the original site.
Expedition 18 Commander E. Michael Fincke, Flight Engineer and Soyuz Commander Yury Lonchakov and Spaceflight Participant Charles Simonyi will return to Earth at 2:15 a.m. CDT, which is 1:15 p.m. local time in Kazakhstan. The landing will take place near the town of Dzhezkazgan, which is west of Karaganda and southeast of the usual landing zone near Arkalyk. Fincke and Lonchakov have been aboard the orbiting laboratory since October 2008 and will land in the Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft that carried them into orbit.
Crews Prepare for Expedition 18 Departure
Expedition 18 Commander Mike Fincke and Flight Engineer Yury Lonchakov continued preparations Monday for their impending departure from the International Space Station. Among those activities were physical exercise and the transfer to their Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft of experiments and other items slated for return to Earth.
Fincke and Lonchakov are targeted to return to Earth on April 8. Joining them aboard their Soyuz spacecraft will be Charles Simonyi, a spaceflight participant who arrived at the station with Expedition 19 for a two-week stay. Staying aboard the station are Expedition 19 Commander Gennady Padalka and flight engineers Koichi Wakata and Michael Barratt.