Expedition Six Commander Ken Bowersox, Flight Engineer Nikolai Budarin and NASA ISS Science Officer Don Pettit took command of the International Space Station from the Expedition Five crew Monday evening....Expedition Six Commander Ken Bowersox, Flight Engineer Nikolai Budarin and NASA ISS Science Officer Don Pettit took command of the International Space Station from the Expedition Five crew Monday evening. The handover occurred when the swap-out of the custom-made Soyuz seatliners and pressure checks of their Sokol re-entry suits were complete. The Soyuz serves as a lifeboat for the station, enabling a crew to come home quickly in the event of an emergency. Each crewmember has their own custom-fitted seat liner to cushion the effects of a Soyuz landing.
The official exchange of resident crews aboard the station is complete once the New Expedition crew has transferred its seatliners to the Soyuz spacecraft and the Old Expedition crew transfers its seatliners over the Shuttle for the return trip home.

This begins a five-month tour of duty for Expedition Six and ends Expedition Five’s tour as the resident crew, which began in June. The two crews will hold handover briefings over the next week before Expedition Five - Commander Valery Korzun, Flight Engineer Sergei Treschev and NASA ISS Science Officer Peggy Whitson - leaves the station Dec. 2 with the STS-113 crewmembers.

Tuesday, construction of the station will continue with the addition of the P1 (P-One) Truss. It is scheduled to be attached to the port end of the S0 (S-Zero) Truss at 1 p.m. CST (1900 GMT). Then, STS-113 spacewalkers Michael Lopez-Alegria and John Herrington will conduct a spacewalk to begin activating and outfitting the P1. The spacewalk is slated to start at 2:20 p.m. CST (2020 GMT).