Three departing Expedition 24 crew members will spend at least another day on the International Space Station following an unsuccessful attempt to undock their Soyuz spacecraft overnight.

Expedition 24 Commander Alexander Skvortsov and Flight Engineers Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Mikhail Kornienko made final preparations Wednesday for their departure from the International Space Station and their return home.

They are set to depart the station aboard their Soyuz TMA-18 spacecraft Thursday with hatch closure scheduled for 6:20 p.m. EDT, undocking at 9:35 p.m. and landing in the steppes of Kazakhstan at about 12:55 a.m. Friday.

Expedition 24 Commander Alexander Skvortsov and Flight Engineers Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Mikhail Kornienko spent Monday preparing for their departure Thursday from the International Space Station. They packed items to be returned to Earth in their Soyuz TMA-18 spacecraft, reviewed deorbit and landing procedures and checked out their Sokol launch and entry suits.

Topics in this report:
1. Upcoming School Contact
2. Astronaut Shannon Walker Radios Australian Students
3. Utah Scouts Celebrate Centennial with ARISS Contact
4. MAI-75 Experiment Activated
5. Astronaut Training Status
6. Video of ARISS - Norwegian Museum Contact
7. QST Covers ARISS Activities

After taking part in Thursday’s daily planning conference with flight control teams on Earth and performing some routine morning inspections, the Expedition 24 crew members worked on a variety of science experiments.

Commander Alexander Skvortsov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Kornienko worked with the Russian KASKAD (Cascade) experiment that investigates cultivation processes of microorganism, animal and human cells in microgravity.

Topics in this report:
1. Upcoming School Contacts
2. ARISS Contact with Norwegian Museum
3. SSTV to be Activated on ISS
4. Astronaut Training Status
5. Amateur Radio Newsline Covers ARISS
6. ARRL Article on ARISS School
7. Article on General Contact with Doug Wheelock

Remember the happy birthday song from space? Doug Wheelock did it again! As he has promised he took a picture of the Iberian peninsula and sent it down on twitpic mentioning his Ham Radio Friends in Spain and Portugal.

A view of the Iberian Peninsula, the Strait of Gibraltar, the Mediterranean, and northern Africa . A special ‘shout out’ to my Ham Radio friends in Spain and Portugal: Fabiano, Paolo and Marco! Looks like a splendid summer afternoon, I am looking forward to our next contact. My very best wishes…

The ISS Progress 39 cargo craft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 6:22 a.m. EDT Friday. The Russian resupply craft is delivering 1,918 pounds of propellant, 110 pounds of oxygen, 375 pounds of water and 2,645 pounds of spare parts, experiment hardware and other supplies for the Expedition 24 crew members. Docking is scheduled for 7:58 a.m. Sunday to the aft end of the Zvezda service module. NASA TV coverage on Sunday begins at 7:15 a.m.

› Watch video of the launch at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?collection_id=145...

As Kenneth N5VHO tells us from his twitter account the Russian MATI-75 experiment is expected to restart the ISS SSTV activity on September 13th and 14th between 1200 and 1600 UTC each day.

Moving a major step closer to its final spaceflight before retirement, shuttle Discovery took a road trip this morning from the hangar to the nearby Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center where it will be attached to the external fuel tank and twin solid rockets. Launch is slated for Nov. 1.